


Duet of Silence

by LadyJanus



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Eye of Jupiter, F/F, F/M, Temple of the Five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 11:30:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 57,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6282850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyJanus/pseuds/LadyJanus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One thing Laura Roslin has always been good at was silences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written back in late 2006 and early 2007, starting just after "The Eye of Jupiter" episode and finishing just before the revelation of four of the Final Five Cylons at the end of Season 3. Also inspired by the original Battlestar Galactica of which I was a great fan!
> 
> Everything after "The Eye of Jupiter" is alternate universe.

_One thing Laura Roslin has always been good at was silences. From a child, she's always known when to keep silent, for eventually, every child learns what is necessary to survive or not. That she has spent the last half-century under the weight of her silences is a testament to how well she has learned; a burden she has learned how to bear._

#

William Adama scrubbed his face in exhaustion as he loosened the collar of his uniform and sat down on his couch. _Galactica_ and her fleet of refugee ships had just finished their tenth consecutive Jump in as many days after leaving the system where the Temple of the Five and the Eye of Jupiter had been found.

He'd managed to get Lee, Tyrol, Anders and most of the others off the planet, but they'd lost Kara. _Gods!_ She'd been shot down and captured by the Cylons; it almost made him wish he'd been able to nuke the planet as he'd intended.

_"Are we prepared to give up Lee?"_

He didn't want to think about Laura Roslin right now, but her soft voice and her question had burrowed into his heart and lodged there like a thorn, for at that moment--may the Lords of Kobol forgive him--the answer had been "yes". And although the Gods had seen fit to spare his son life, he'd lost Kara, the young woman he'd held in his heart like a daughter.

In any case, the nukes had not worked; the system's primary was a pre-nova star, and its instability and prominent solar flares had made a hash of the weapons' guidance systems. _Galactica_ had barely been able to get a raptor through to rescue her people--their only saving grace was that Cylon weapons were similarly disrupted.

In those incredible moments, the Eye had been revealed; a great ray of energy had burst forth from the Temple--from the Five Pillars themselves, according to eye-witness accounts--focused through the great lens of the domed roof and straight into the heart of the star. 

And it was Kara Thrace who'd somehow made it happen--sweet, unruly ... _frakked-up_ Starbuck. Badly injured and dragged into the Temple by Gaius Baltar and the Cylon, D'Anna Biers, she'd been the only one who'd known how to manipulate the design that Tyrol had found in order to activate the device. 

The energy released by the Temple had pierced the star's heart, which in turn had released another bolt of energy that streaked through the heavens straight as an arrow pointing the path the Thirteenth Tribe had taken. Of course, the Cylons had also received that information. Bill thanked the Lords that it was only a direction not a destination they'd gained. In the end, he'd only had moments to grab his people off the planet and jump out before the star went nova.

 _Galactica_ had joined up with the rest of the fleet and they were now following the path illuminated the Eye, but he knew that the Cylons were there, if not ahead of them, then shadowing the Colonials on a parallel path. He could only hope that they would not find the next clue to Earth first.

A pounding on his hatch jolted him from his reveries. Lee rushed in without waiting for his acknowledgement, followed by Helo, Athena, Anders and Tyrol.

"Dad!" his son gasped. "We have to get Kara back--she's the key, Dad," he said. "She is the key."

"I know, son," he said wearily.

"No, you don't understand!" Adama's eyes widened at his son's agitation; beyond him he saw the raw hope on Samuel Anders' face. Adama knew of the mess of the relationship between Lee and Anders and their respective spouses, so it had to be important for the other young man to come here.

"Dad, Kara knew about the Eye before we even left the Colonies!"

Adama gaped at him. Rising slowly from the couch, he gazed at each hopeful face in turn. "Lee, what is this all about?" he asked hoarsely.

Lee slapped down a picture on his father's desk; a laughing Kara looked lovingly into the eyes of the dark-haired young man whose arms circled her waist with obvious pride and love. Adama had never seen his youngest son, Zak, look more happy or alive.

"Chief, what's this?" Lee demanded, stabbing at a circular design on the wall behind the young couple. It was out of focus, but the brilliant colours in concentric rings caught the attention and held it.

Tyrol stepped forward; his face blanched as he studied the picture. "I don't understand," he said hoarsely. "It's the design, sir--it's the design of the mechanism from the Temple of the Five. The one Starbuck used to activate the Eye of Jupiter."

"Exactly!" Lee said. "It's the design of the mechanism from the Temple, but there are no descriptions of the Eye or how it was to be activated in any of our sacred writings or histories; so how did Kara know? How is it that she was able to paint this design for Zak nearly three months _before_ he died?" William Adama stared at his only living son in utter shock. "She painted this over two years before the destruction of the Colonies. That was five years ago, Dad-- _five_ years ago!"

"What are you saying, Apollo?" Anders said.

Lee shifted his gaze to meet his rival's levelly. "I'm saying that Kara may be the key to _this_ ... to whatever this whole frakking prophecy we're all caught up in! _She_ retrieved the Arrow of Apollo, brought it back to Kobol in order to open the Tomb of Athena, retrieving the first part of the puzzle that would get us to Earth. Now she's the only one who knew what that design was and how to activate it. Hell, even Leobon keeps saying that Starbuck has a destiny--whatever the _frak_ that means to the Cylons! And now they have her."

"But Starbuck didn't do any of that consciously," Karl "Helo" Agathon said. "And it was _Roslin_ \--hopped up on Chamalla--who sent her back to Caprica for the Arrow." The hatred in his voice as he spat the Colonial president's name was palpable.

"But the point is that she sent _Starbuck_ ," Lee insisted. "Athena, why are the Cylons--and Leobon in particular--so interested in Kara? Doc Cottle thinks they harvested some of her eggs. Why?" 

Sharon "Athena" Agathon's face was pale. "I honestly don't know, Apollo," she said. "The only thing I know about Leobon and Kara is from before I disconnected from the Link back on Caprica. The Leobons have a thing about the Hybrids at the centre of Cylon ships; they study them ... take their words as Gospel from God. But Hybrids just speak a lot of gibberish; it's a side-effect of their existence. Little of what they say is even coherent."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Lee asked.

"Because the Leobons believe that a Hybrid may have mentioned Kara in its ramblings," Athena replied in resignation. "From across the chasm, Artemis directs her stag among the stars carrying on its back the fleet-footed huntress. Favoured Atalanta's arrows will pierce each target in the Hunt--let fly flaming torches across the sky to light the path," she parroted in a soft chanting voice. 

She wrapped her arms about herself. "The Leobon models believe that Kara is Artemis' _stag among the stars_ \--a stag is also a buck. So she is the star-buck and she is also Atalanta, the goddess' favoured handmaid."

"Why haven't you ever said anything about this?" Adama said, voice rumbling menacingly. A horrible suspicion gripped him; had he trusted her too much?

"Sir, after Kobol, I didn't think that it was applicable anymore," the Cylon woman replied. "I thought it only applied to the Arrow of Apollo. I didn't consider it after that incident and none of what the Hybrids say is really taken seriously by the Cylons--"

"Except by Leobon," Adama husked.

"Yes sir, they see it as prophecy and study every word."

Lee tapped the photograph again. "But that prophecy mentions arrows and targets and a hunt--if you look at that design, it looks like an archery target. What if there are other targets out there? Other clues," Lee said hoarsely. "Kara's first arrow opened the Temple of Athena, activated the first map and gave us a direction to head in. Her second activated the Eye of Jupiter in the Temple of the Five, illuminating the next part of the path. What happens when it comes time to shoot the next arrow in the hunt for Earth?"

"What happens if the Cylons find the next target and they have Starbuck?" Anders said hoarsely. "Sir, Leobon has already shown that he has no compunction about torturing Kara. We have to get my wife out of there."

"I know, Sam." Adama regarded the young man's face contorted in pain. He loved Kara as much as Lee did, and all at once--but not for the first time--Adama felt ashamed of his son; ashamed that his son would be so dishonourable as to come between another man and his wife, no matter what problems they might be having in their marriage, and especially since Lee was also married. But the mess his son had made of his life was his own business, and Adama had promised himself not to interfere.

"And what about _my_ daughter?" Resentment dripped from Karl Agathon's every word these days--not that Adama could blame him, but it did get tiresome after awhile. "My baby is an innocent in all this, but not one word about getting her back. She's sick and she might be dying at the hands of the Cylons, but not one word about rescuing _her!_ But your son comes here with some nebulous prophecy about Starbuck and I can see that you're ready to give him everything--risk _all_ our lives on the faint hope of getting her back. Meanwhile, my wife and I work our asses off to prove ourselves to you every day--"

"Helo, enough," Athena said. However, there was a quiet resignation in the young Cylon woman's voice that told Adama that she agreed with her husband's assessment. She agreed, but she was too demoralised ... too disillusioned with the people to whom she'd given her loyalty to have any hope of convincing them to rescue her daughter, or to waste her breath voicing her anger.

An answering anger rose in Adama's chest as he thought of the reason for Athena and Helo's disillusionment with humanity. Laura Roslin. President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. For she was the reason behind Adama's greatest disillusionment as well. Looking into Roslin's eyes that day when he'd asked her about the Cylons' accusation that she'd stolen Athena and Helo's baby and hidden her from them, had told him that everything he'd thought he'd known about this woman he'd come to love was a lie. Behind that lovely façade, _she_ was a lie.

Adama knew what it was like to lose a child--to have part of your soul irrevocably hollowed out with that loss. To know that Laura Roslin was capable of something like that ... to know that she was capable of inflicting that sort of pain on anyone by telling these two young people that their baby had died soon after birth was unforgivable. 

Oh, he knew the reasons behind her thinking, but he wasn't in the mood that day to listen to her blithe, _politician's_ rationalisations behind such an unspeakable act ... to protect the hybrid human-Cylon child from the anti-Cylon sentiment within the fleet ... to protect her from being captured by the Cylons for whom she was some sort of messiah. So he'd done the only thing he could do that day; he'd walked away from her without a word.

But now, because of Roslin, the child had fallen into Cylon hands anyway. The woman she'd fostered the child with had never made it off the ill-fated settlement of New Caprica and the Cylons had found baby after the evacuation.

"I'm not ready to risk anyone's life on rescuing Starbuck _or_ Hera until you can bring me a viable plan," Adama said, casting his gaze around the room. "Until then, this subject is moot."

#


	2. Chapter 2

_The Wraith wearing poor Maya's face pointed toward the dark doorway. Her silent maw gaped. "Go!" she whispered into Laura's soul, pouring coldness in, freezing her from the inside out. From beyond the threshold, the Child cried piteously._

_Suddenly, there was another voice in her head, filling her with warmth. The Wraith disappeared and Laura found herself in a place of pure light that blinded her. As she blinked back the tears, she was engulfed in a soft orb of light. "Be strong, Laura," the gentle voice said. "We are with you. Go into the light."_

_"Who are you?" she whispered._

_"We are those you would seek in the light." The doorway appeared again, but this time it was a shining portal of light. "Go, we will find you; we will be with you."_

_Laura stepped through the doorway into the stark, white chamber with gold gilding and filled with ranks and ranks of humanoid Cylons, while metallic Centurions gleamed on the upper tiers. In the centre of the room was a raised dais with a sinister-looking metal chair._

_The Child's eyes were cold and dead. Laura recoiled; it took all her strength not to back away in fear._

_Two Centurions grabbed her, each crushing her arms in vice-like grips. She was shoved into the chair and quickly secured to it by her wrists and ankles with iron shackles. To one side was a large machine that displayed grotesque, shifting landscapes. Curled at her feet in the foetal position, was Kara Thrace, submerged in a pool of gelatinous, pearlescent material._

_"Don' wowy, Aun'ie Lawa," the hideous Child lisped, advancing inexorably. Her voice deepened into D'Anna Biers' harsh tones and she bared a blood-stained grin as she climbed onto Laura's lap. "Your blood will warm me as mine has warmed you!"_

#

Laura's wordless scream reverberated in the silence; the Child's laughter reverberated in her mind dragging it through eternity, merging with the pounding on her door frame until she snapped back to reality.

"Madam President! Are you all right?" The barely restrained worry in Tori's voice banished the last of the cobwebs fouling Laura's mind.

"I'm fine, Tori," she said fumbling in the dark for her robe. She reached over and flipped on the light. "Come in." The anxious young woman was followed by Cynthia Powell, the only woman on her new security team--most of her old team having never made it off New Caprica. The blonde security woman's hand hovered on the butt of her sidearm.

"Is everything all right in here, Ma'am?" Powell's rich contralto rumbled concern.

Laura willed her hand to stop shaking as she reached for the glass of water by her bedside and managed to take a sip. "Yes Cynthia, I'm all right--just a bad dream after a long, tiresome day of Quorum and Committee meetings. I'm sorry I disturbed you. Please, return to your duties."

Powell nodded a polite bow and retreated towards the threshold. "As you wish, Ma'am." 

Laura spared a small smile at Powell's broad back. Captain Darius, head of the President's Security Contingent, usually scheduled Powell to guard her door every second and fifth night; lately, Tori invariably worked late on those nights and showed up the next morning looking a little more tired than usual.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Tori asked, clearly reluctant to leave while she might still be in distress.

Laura rose, belting her robe tightly. "I'm fine, Tori," she said smiling as she gave the young woman's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I'll probably have a bit of trouble getting back to sleep while that little doozy works it's way through my subconscious, but it's nothing to worry about. I'm just sorry I interrupted you and Cynthia; I know how little time together my schedule leaves you both." 

Laura chuckled at the startled, jaw-dropped expression she so rarely ever saw on the consummately poised young woman's face, and felt a little smug in succeeding at diverting her aide's attention. She reached out and wiped away a small smudge of pale coral lipstick from one corner of Tori's lips.

She cupped Tori's horrified face gently. "It's all right, Tori," she said softly. 

Tori swallowed and nodded, eyes shining brightly with unexpected tears. 

"Good."

The young woman turned to go, but again hesitated. "Laura, I hope you know that Cyn and I would never compromise your security or your presidency with our relationship--"

"Tori, you and Cynthia are entitled to your private lives like everyone else in this fleet," she said firmly. "Don't let anything--especially not my presidency or your respective jobs--take that away from you. There are enough things that can put strain on a relationship between two people; I'd rather not be the cause of one of them, all right?"

"Yes Ma'am," her aide replied with a small grateful smile.

"As for compromising my security," she said with another small, devilish chuckle at the younger woman's expense. "I think I've been president long enough to know that my security won't be compromised by two people indulging in quiet conversation and a few kisses during a relatively boring night shift."

If Tori's dark skin could show a blush, Laura knew she would be bright red right now; as it was, she lowered her gaze and laughed. "Yes Ma'am," she repeated when she could meet Laura's eyes again. "Good night, Laura, and thank you."

"There's no need to thank me, but you're welcome, and congratulations to both you and Cynthia." Tori nodded once more and ducked out, pulling the curtains closed. After a moment, Laura took a deep breath and sat down on the edge of her cot.

She pulled her robe more tightly about herself and lay down. Rather than fading the way dreams usually did upon waking, this dream lingered in brilliant, horrible colour, becoming sharper as her mind filled in details she hadn't consciously noticed in the original experience. It was more than just a dream; that she knew for certain. And she knew instinctively what was coming and what she needed to do. 

It frightened her to death.

#


	3. Chapter 3

_"Frak!"_ Karl Agathon dashed the models off the operations planning map-table. Another wasted strategy session with that frakker Lee shooting down every suggestion.

"Apollo and Gaeta are right, Helo," Sharon said quietly as Gaeta retrieved the models and placed them on the table before followed the others out. "Without something to entice the Cylons into letting us get close, none of our brilliant ops have a hope in hell of working."

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. He felt, rather than saw, her tears close to the surface. "You'd better get to CIC or you'll be late," she said hoarsely. "And I've got to get down to the hanger deck."

He kissed her one last time and walked her to the hatch of the Situation Room. At the threshold, Sharon froze and he instinctively gathered her into his protective embrace as Roslin and her entourage came down the corridor. His anger boiled over as he met the President's cool, emotionless gaze. The bitch turned and walked away, head high as if she owned the place.

Sharon stopped him before he could say anything. "Get going, Helo," she said as the procession turned the corner.

"I hate her," he said. "I will _always_ hate her."

Sharon nodded and went up on her toes to drop a brief kiss on his lips before leaving.

Helo made his way into Combat Information Centre, still seething and automatically accepted the watch from Dualla. "What was the President doing here?" he demanded, barely keeping his voice level.

"Don't know," she said shrugging indifferently. "She had a meeting with the Old Man and Colonel Tigh--probably something to do with the Open Quorum on the _Rising Star_ in a couple of days."

As Dualla left, Helo became aware of that awful, powerless feeling growing inside him again. Ever since their escape from New Caprica, the populace held Roslin up as damned near some goddess. Even on _Galactica_ , news of what she'd done to him and his wife was met with almost complete indifference. He knew how indifferent they would have been had Hera been a fully human child--there would have been no end to the outrage. But because Sharon was a Cylon, it was their excuse to treat her and Hera as sub-human.

And he knew Roslin; it was only a matter of time before she charmed her way back into the Adama's good graces, just like she'd tried to charm him and Sharon with her false politician's contrition and even more fake apology. Hell, she'd charmed Saul Tigh, Adama's best friend and one of her worst critics during the first months after the Holocaust; now the XO would lick her boots if she demanded it. And the same went for that old terrorist, Tom Zarek. By all reports, he had tried to assassinate her ... had led Baltar's campaign to defeat her ... and after the Exodus from New Caprica, had given up the presidency he'd fought so hard to gain, allowing her to get back into power once again _without_ being elected. Now he stood beside her as her Vice President--another _frakking_ mouthpiece for her policies.

Helo forced his fists to relax as he made his first circuit about CIC, looking at the various workstation displays and always keeping an eye on the DRADIS console. 

_One way or another,_ he promised himself, _I will make Laura Roslin pay._

#

"Well, this is a surprise," Major John Cottle said as he closed the curtain around the examining room. "You, _voluntarily_ coming in for a check-up. Will wonders never cease?"

"Cut the comedy routine, Jack," Laura replied irritably as she sat down on the edge of the bed. "Let's just get it over with, please."

Cottle grunted and took the ubiquitous cigarette hanging from his lips, stubbed it out on the edge of a bedpan and put it carefully back into his pocket. 

"I've been after you for weeks to come in for a full check-up since we left New Caprica--"

"And I'm _frakking_ here now," she retorted, keeping her voice low. He raised an eyebrow at her use of profanity. "Sorry Jack," she said quietly. "Can we just get on with it, please?"

He started by listening to her strong, steady heartbeat and working his way through his pulmonary, neural and reflexes checklists. Everything was strong and healthy--too strong and healthy for a fifty-one year old woman who'd been through a bout of terminal breast cancer. But it was par for the course since Baltar had shot her up with the Agathon baby's blood to cure that cancer. Knowing how much she valued silence during medical exams, Jack worked as quickly and quietly as he could, asking the bare minimum of questions.

After he finished her internal gynaecological exam, she sat up, adjusted her gown and asked, "How long will it take me to make a blood donation?"

Cottle stopped in the middle of removing his gloves and stared at her in surprise. "What?"

"It's simple, Jack, I would like to make a donation," she said clearly irritated again. "I would like to do it now--and as discretely as possible."

Cottle finished stripping off the gloves and tossed them into the recycler. "May I ask why?"

Laura closed her eyes and dropped her chin. "Admiral Adama has given permission to plan a rescue of Starbuck and Hera," she said in that pedantic, schoolmarm voice. She met his gaze again, face closed--eyes hooded. "And we both know how _motivated_ those young people are. Sooner or later they will come up with a viable plan. The child is sick--we don't know what's wrong, but her blood is in me. Suffice it to say, if worse comes to worse, you'll have it on hand just in case she needs surgery or what not. But I would rather not have Karl Agathon in my face when the time comes."

Cottle studied her pale face for a few moments longer and then nodded. The whole debacle with the Agathon baby was as much his responsibility as it was hers. Without his co-operation she wouldn't have been able to pull it off, but he'd immediately understood her arguments; daily contact with the civilians in the fleet had forced him to see the ramifications of leaving Hera with her parents. However, Athena and Helo had definitely cast Roslin as the villain of the piece and he was truly sorry about that. 

"Get dressed and I'll set it up."

"Thank you."

#


	4. Chapter 4

"I take it then that the security arrangements meet with your approval, Madam President," Adama said. 

The voice on the other end of the line was quiet, tired. "Yes, I'm sure they're fine. Major Adama just left with the Vice President and Captain Darius to go over the fine details," Roslin said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Admiral Adama, Tori is standing here with about a hundred files that need my attention before tomorrow. I trust there's nothing else?"

"No, there's nothing else, Madam President," he replied. 

Before he finished saying her title, the line clicked off and there was nothing but dead air. Adama reached out and turned off the speaker. He sat with an abstracted air of contemplation for a few minutes before Tigh broke the silence.

"Well that's that," he observed.

"Saul?" Adama seemed to register Tigh's presence for the first time.

"You've been very distracted the last couple of days," his friend and executive officer noted. "What gives?"

"It's nothing," he began and then noticed the expression on Tigh's face; the one that said "don't bullshit a bullshitter". He rose and moved over to the coffee table to pour himself another glass of ambrosia. "It's just--Roslin is being more uncommunicative than usual. If we didn't talk to Tori or bloody Zarek, we wouldn't know what the hell was going on over there."

Tigh stared at him for a long moment, single eye unblinking and then barked a harsh laugh. "So you finally noticed that after weeks of not talking to her, _she's_ not talking to you--well, congratulations you frakking sanctimonious son-of-a-bitch!"

Adama literally did a double take, staring at his friend as if he'd grown another head. "Excuse me?" he growled in a low, dangerous voice.

"There is no _frakking_ excuse for you or the way you've treated her for making a _presidential_ decision for the good of the fleet, _Admiral_ ," Tigh blazed; Adama's hand tightened around his glass. "Tori and godsdamned Zarek were right--oh, I defended you like a good soldier--but they were right! You've lost _all_ objectivity when it comes to the frakking Agathons! You've turned Athena into yet another surrogate daughter, Helo into some sort of surrogate son because your own son has finally got the stick out of his ass and started living his own frakked-up life--and you can't see how corrosive ... how dangerous they've become to the unity of this ship and this frakking fleet because you're so busy commiserating with them over your lost _babies_ \--"

Saul Tigh's head snapped back as a powerful upper cut cracked across his chin. He stumbled backwards on rubber legs, tripping over the low coffee table to land in an ungainly sprawl between the table and the couch. He smiled a nasty, bloodied smile as he looked up at his oldest friend standing there, craggy face contorted with rage. Golden ambrosia sloshed from the glass in Bill's left hand and dripped onto the deck.

"Oh that's your answer for everything, isn't it Bill?" Saul laughed, but there wasn't any mirth in it. "That or silence; but like I know how to take your blows, our little schoolteacher knows exactly how to take your silence. And Laura Roslin's a hell of a lot stronger than you can imagine, Bill; a hell of a lot stronger than even the frakking Cylons imagined. She survived New Caprica ... four ... five trips to Cylon detention, so believe me, she can more than survive your frakking _silence_. And she won't come to you again, Admiral--oh no, _you_ are going to have to go to _her_ from now on."

Saul levered himself up from the floor and wiped his bloody mouth on his sleeve. His jaw was on fire and his tongue felt like he'd bitten it in half, but he held Adama's gaze and continued to speak; one thing he had to hand to this frakker he called friend--once the first flush of anger passed--Bill Adama wasn't afraid to listen to the hard truths about himself. Perhaps that was why they'd remained friends for so many years.

"But you'd better do something about the bloody _Agathons_ and soon," he said in a hard, unyielding voice. "Because Starbuck's and my insubordination right after the rescue doesn't even come close to what Helo and Athena are doing to morale right now. As for the fleet--you might think that Roslin was just spouting bullshit on just how much danger that baby was in when she was born, but with all due respect you haven't been out among the fleet, _Admiral_. In my book, she did everything humanly possible to _protect_ that baby. 

"And after New Caprica, all I can say is for that child's sake I hope they don't get her back, because neither you nor Karl _frakking_ Agathon will be able to protect her from the people's wrath. I know that because I ran the suicide bombers down on the planet, and by the time you rescued us, I had a waiting list--of people willing to blow themselves to oblivion--that was the length of _Galactica_. Believe me, there are more than enough people in our fleet ready to wring that child's neck in retaliation for what was done to them--in retribution for the husbands and wives and _babies_ the Cylons slaughtered."

#

"Laura." 

Wallace Grey's quiet tones as he greeted her with a gentle kiss on the cheek were a welcome balm to all the turmoil raging inside her--for here was someone who had never wanted anything from her but her friendship, even when she hadn't been nearly a good enough friend to him.

"Oh Wally, it's so good to see you," she whispered into his lapel as he pulled her closer.

He looked down at her in concern. "Hey, what's going on? We saw each other just last week."

She smiled wanly. "Let's just say it's been a long week," she said, breaking their embrace before taking his offered arm and allowing him escort her from _Rising Star's_ docking area. 

"You _are_ looking rather more worn-out than usual," he commented.

"Oh thanks, just what every woman needs to hear, Mr. Quorum Secretary," she quipped, chuckling softly.

He didn't take the bait, but looked down at her with even more concern. "That's not funny, Laura," he said. "Are you all right--you're not sick again, are you?"

She put a lid on her attempt at humour. "No, I'm not sick again, Wally," she replied. "As a matter of fact, I had a full physical with Doctor Cottle a few days ago and I'm completely healthy. A bit stressed and over-worked, but nothing serious."

"And an Open Quorum--with everyone and his brother demanding answers on whatever "issues" they have at the moment--isn't going to exactly do much for those stress levels," he said sympathetically, leading her into the large theatre that would serve as the open forum in which "the People" could question their government representatives. 

Laura would have preferred to postpone it, but with the wounds of Baltar's nightmare reign and the Cylon Occupation still fresh, the remnants of her people needed the three-day forum to know that their grievances were being taken seriously and to regain confidence in their leaders. Back in the Colonies, such things would have been handled by professional lobby firms representing powerful concerns, but now they were most likely ship's crew or prominent passengers armed with a list of complaints on everything from ration distribution to testing a disliked neighbour for Cylon traits.

"Well, I hope you like what we've done with the room," Wally said, chuckling in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood.

Laura's breath caught as she took in the white room with the gold trimmings that glowed softly in the artificial light.

#


	5. Chapter 5

Karl Agathon watched the delegates from _Aphrodite's Dream_ and _Sargon_ leave the Raptor, chattering amongst themselves with angry self-importance at being scheduled for the last day and on top of that, missing the morning session. He met the gaze of the lead delegate from the refinery ship, _Daru Mozu_ ; the tylium processing engineer rolled his eyes in amusement before throwing Helo a salute and disembarking with his crewmates. The others had been pissed off because their Raptor had been diverted to pick up the refinery ship's delegates before continuing on to the _Rising Star_.

When the last one was gone, Sharon stepped into his arms. "I'm not sure about this, Helo," she whispered.

He gazed down into her eyes. "Do you trust me?"

"Always."

"Then trust me now," he said softly. "I know what I'm doing and this is going to work. We're never going to get our little girl back if we rely on _them_. We have to do it ourselves. Now secure the Raptor and be ready to go when I get back."

Sharon took a deep breath and stepped back. "I'll be ready," she replied.

Helo nodded, picked up his duffle and disembarked quickly before he lost his nerve. As he lost himself among the thronging masses he fingered the small vial in his pocket. _This had to work--it had to!_

"How many times will we sacrifice the goddess for _our_ mistakes?" spat a hoarse, cracked voice. Helo looked down at the gaunt, wizened woman dressed in dirty rags who held his arm in a surprisingly tight grip; her breath was as foul as her clothing. "How many times must she throw herself from the precipice because we choose the false over the true?"

"Let go of me, lady," Helo growled, wrenching his arm from her grasp. 

Her eyes bored through him with frightening intensity. "Then go and when you return, pray--pray for the Angels of the Light to come, boy." With that she melted away into the crowd in a swirl of rank clothing and a miasma of unease settled about him.

Taking a deep breath he continued on to his destination, the Open Quorum chamber. He passed easily through the security checkpoint and by the time he reached the crowded upper tier, Roslin was bringing that morning's session to a close. He watched her consult with Tori and a tall, pale man for a few moments; then he hurried to the stairs that would take him down to the back gallery.

As he moved down the gallery, he caught a glimpse of her distinctive red hair; she was headed towards the small conference room in the back that Lee had commandeered to serve as her office--a young, blond security officer trailed in her wake. Once he was certain he had her in sight, he slowed his walk to a more decorous pace and he found himself thanking Tyche, Goddess of Fortune, that Roslin was a relatively tall woman who wore heels.

She disappeared around the corner into the side corridor. Helo cautiously approached and waited; he heard her ask the guard to run down to the kitchen, and pick up a sandwich and some tea for her. He watched the young man--hardly more than a boy really--take off at a quick clip, eager to do her bidding. After a moment longer, he hurried to the door and slipped inside. 

Roslin stood in front her desk checking through a file before returning it to her briefcase; her back was to him. As the door clicked close behind him, she stiffened visibly and turned around. Her face was as inscrutable as ever.

"Captain Agathon," she said quietly, holding his gaze intently.

"I'm afraid you'll have to come with me, Ms Roslin," he said. 

She nodded, but didn't say anything. She turned back to her briefcase and snapped it shut. "You won't need that," she said, angling her chin towards the sidearm in his hand; Helo hadn't even realised that he'd unholstered it. "I get the picture and I hardly think that you'll be inconspicuous holding a gun on the President of the Colonies."

"You don't give the orders here," he snarled, feeling that familiar boiling anger again.

"Look, Mr. Agathon, whatever you're planning here, I'd like it done with as little bloodshed of innocents as possible, so I am co-operating. You won't have any trouble from me," she said as if speaking to a small child. "I assume that you are intent on kidnapping me, so unless your plan includes an armed stand-off with my guards, I'd suggest you put that away and we get out of here before that very fine young man, who reminds me entirely too much of Billy, returns with my meal."

She picked up her briefcase and marched past him out the door; Helo had a strange sense of unreality as he holstered the sidearm and followed her out.

"That way," he said, pointing down the corridor towards the service exit. She walked briskly in the direction he indicated. At the door, he pulled the cloak from the duffle and handed it to her. "Put it on," he instructed and she complied without comment, pulling the hood up to cover her hair. Once outside the conference area, he grasped her upper arm and propelled her towards the docking bay. This time no one accosted him.

#

"Madam President?" Tori called as she entered the empty office with an armload of files; Corporal Dunn pulled the door shut behind her. Dumping the files on one end of the desk, she sighed gratefully at the sight of the pot of hot tea next to the plate of sandwiches and went to pour herself a cup. As she savoured the strong brew, she could feel the tensions of the last three days easing a bit--just another four hours and they wouldn't have to go through this for another three months.

Tori took another relaxing sip and realised how unnaturally quiet it was--she'd assumed that Roslin was in the bathroom, but now-- 

She studied the bathroom door; no sound, no sign of activity came from within. Tori crossed the room quickly and knocked on the door.

"Madam President? Laura?" 

Receiving no response, she knocked again, this time more loudly. "Madam President, are you in there?" Still only concerned, she tried the knob; it opened easily into the spotless, deserted bathroom. Tamping down on her rising unease, she hurried back to the door and pulled it open. "Dunn, do you know where the President is?" she asked the young guard.

He looked at her in surprise. "She's not in there?" he asked stepping inside. "When I returned with her lunch, I assumed that she was in the head--"

Alarm bells jangled in Tori's head. "When you _returned_ with her lunch?" she said in shock and his eyes widened in confusion. "You left the President _alone_ while you went to get her lunch?" she shouted at him running to the phone on the desk and punching up the pre-programmed emergency number. As she waited for the call to go through to Jason Darius' secure mobile line, she watched the horrible realisation dawn on the boy. 

_Frak! Frak! Frak!_ ran through her mind like a mantra as she paced the short length the phone cord would allow.

"Darius here--"

"Captain, get down to the President's office now," she ordered swallowing her panic, "and bring Colonel Tigh and Major Adama with you. We have a problem."

"On our way," Darius replied.

#


	6. Chapter 6

It was a relatively boring shift in CIC; they hadn't seen any sign of the Cylons in nearly three weeks and all they had to keep track of was the increasing traffic as delegates started heading back to their respective ships after participating in the Open Quorum.

But that was good, Bill decided; these last few days of relative calm had given him a chance to clear his head and put Saul's observations into perspective. And what he'd found when he delved more deeply into the fleet reports disturbed him to the core. Tigh hadn't exaggerated the anti-Cylon sentiment in the fleet--if anything he'd understated it as well as the surprising anti-Roslin sentiment for her stance on certain issues, the least of which was the half-Cylon child. 

In the last month alone, there had been three unsolved murders that were looking more and more like vigilante executions of suspected collaborators, people for whom there was ample evidence that they had cooperated with the Cylons on New Caprica. 

Roslin had issued a general amnesty to all collaborators after they had broken up the "Circle of Justice" that Tom Zarek had set up during his short-lived "presidency" right after the rescue. And the amnesty was at the heart of a significant amount of resentment directed at her. 

That Saul, Tyrol and Kara had taken part of Zarek's travesty of justice still weighed heavily on Bill's heart. The "Circle" had nearly spaced Felix Gaeta, who had not only _not_ been a collaborator, but on his own initiative had secretly worked inside Baltar's government right under Cylons' noses to help Tigh's resistance save lives and help bring about the rescue.

Adama's gaze rested on Gaeta now as the young man worked quickly and efficiently on updating current navigational charts. This was what he'd hoped his officers would be--hoped all his people would be. Youthful idealism might have led Gaeta to resign his commission and follow Baltar to New Caprica, but once the Cylons had invaded and Baltar had showed himself to be a traitor, the young man had put aside his idealism and his broken dreams and worked towards the good of his people regardless of the danger to himself.

"Admiral Adama," Hoshi, the communications officer, called. "I'm getting a priority call for you from the _Rising Star_ on a scrambled channel. It's Major Adama and Colonel Tigh, sir."

He nodded and picked up the secure phone. "Adama here, go."

"Bill, Laura is missing," Tigh said without preamble.

"What? How?" 

"We don't know," Tigh replied. "We're still looking for her, but the young fool who was _supposed_ to be her guard, left her alone to go get her lunch. When he got back with the food, he assumed she was in the head--it was not until Tori came to brief her for the last session that they realised she was gone. The kid swears up and down he was gone only about five--eight minutes tops and the kitchen crew verifies it."

"Are you sure she isn't just in the Chamber talking to a delegate?" Bill's heart was in his throat as he clutched the phone tighter.

"We're checking all the possibilities," Saul said quietly, "but it feels all wrong. We've stopped all traffic leaving the _Rising Star_ , but given that about twenty minutes passed between the guard's return with her lunch and Tori's discovery, if this is a kidnapping by some vigilante group, then they've had a pretty good head-start. We need you to trace all the transports that left the _Rising Star_ \--"

"Admiral, we have a problem!" 

Adama met Gaeta's confused gaze. "What is it?" he barked.

"Sir, tracking reports that Raptor 647-Alpha has gone off her flight plan to the cargo ship _Swordfish_ and she's not answering hails," Gaeta replied.

"What? Scramble the CAP to intercept," Bill ordered. "Who is the pilot?"

"Athena, sir, according to the flight schedule," Gaeta reported. "Forge was supposed to be her ECO, but he's in life station with a stomach bug, so Helo volunteered to take his place."

"I just bet he did," Tigh said venomously from the other end. "Bill, the guard remembers seeing one of our pilots in the corridor when he went to get Laura's lunch--someone wearing a flight suit. That's partly why he felt safe leaving her."

"I still can't raise them, sir," Hoshi reported.

"Admiral, they're prepping for a jump, but none of the CAP Vipers are anywhere near that position," Gaeta said frantically. "Hot Dog and Ironman can't get there for at least another three minutes-- _Swordfish_ is to hell and gone on the opposite side of the fleet from their current position."

Staring up at the fleeing icon on the DRADIS screen, Bill felt as if his insides had been hollowed out. Saul was right; he'd put his trust in a Cylon and her husband and they'd betrayed him--betrayed this entire fleet.

The icon vanished.

#

The cacophony in _Galactica's_ conference room drowned out his thoughts, but could do nothing to dam the tide of William Adama's guilt. 

_Laura. Gods!_

Bill knew that he should speak ... say something to bring the meeting to order-- 

"All right everybody--shut the frak up!" Tigh shouted.

"Oh, so this is all _my_ fault ... again!" Lee was squaring off against Anders as the noise level dropped.

"Well, she was taken on _your_ watch, Major," Anders shouted back, "so yeah, I don't know who else's fault it could be! Great track record you have there, Apollo--first you let the Cylons take Kara and now Laura. Gods, you were the one who gave frakking Helo the motherfrakking idea!"

Lee looked like he'd taken a blow to the solar plexus; he paled visibly and then a look of horror settled on his features.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Bill said at last looking from one young man to the other.

"Sir, it wasn't Apollo's fault," Gaeta said finally breaking the silence. 

"Will someone explain what in Hades you're talking about?" Jason Darius said in frustration. "How did Major Adama give Captain Agathon the idea to abduct the President?"

"He didn't, Captain Darius," Gaeta replied, "not really. At one point, Helo came up with the idea of using Athena to contact the Cylons by hooking into their link and we would offer them the cure for the virus so that we couldn't threaten their resurrection apparatus again. Apollo simply pointed out that it wasn't a good enough incentive--they simply had to keep the resurrection ship out of range of our fleet and it was a moot point. He told them that whatever we used to bait a trap had to be something they simply couldn't pass up, and since they already had Starbuck to show them the way to Earth and Hera--the proof that they can procreate and a template for their breeding program--there wasn't anything in this fleet that we could offer the Cylons that would be irresistible enough to entice them to a meeting."

"I see," Bill said; it was a harmless remark, a simple point of strategy that mixed with deep pain and a festering hatred Lee didn't understand ... couldn't understand.

"Dad, I never dreamed--" Lee's voice broke, completely demoralised.

"It's not your fault, son," Bill replied, resting his hand on his son's hunched shoulder. He met Saul's steady gaze. "If it was anyone's fault, it was mine for not recognising earlier how dangerous they were becoming to this ship and this fleet, and for not putting a stop to it."

A sudden knocking on the hatch broke the silence again. "Come in," he called. A marine held the door open for Tori and the young woman who'd been one of Laura's guards. The presidential aide looked as close to falling apart as Bill had ever seen her. "Tori, what is it?"

"I was securing the desk the President was using on the _Rising Star_ when I found this, Admiral," she said holding out a bulky white envelope to him with a shaking hand. On the front, written in Laura's flowing calligraphy, it said "Admiral William Adama".

Bill took the envelope and squeezed the young woman's hand gently before tearing the seal open. A small silver device tumbled out into his palm. He looked from it to Tori in askance.

"It's a voice recorder, sir," she said in puzzlement. "One of the reporters left it on Colonial One a couple of weeks ago--I never got around to finding out who lost it."

Adama turned it over in his hand before activating it. 

_"Hi Bill."_ Even on this tinny recorder, her voice was lovely as always. _"Despite my best intentions, things often go astray, don't they,"_ she said wryly. _"By the end of this you'll probably hate me, but this time I really need you to believe in me. I tried to ignore it--dismiss it as a dream--for as long as I could, but when I saw the room the Rising Star had made available for the Open Quorum, I knew for certain it wasn't a dream. Gods, I'm not making any sense--am I? Anyway, I couldn't allow this to play out without leaving you some kind of explanation._

 _"A few nights ago I had a dream--a vision really--it wouldn't leave me, but continued night after night. There are so many possibilities, Bill; I only hope I've made the right choices."_ She paused for a few moments; he heard the fear of failure in her silence. 

_"By the time you get this, if everything goes as I've seen, I'll probably be in Cylon hands. The Agathons have the right idea, but they won't be able to pull it off. You see, they don't know about the Sun Angels--the Angels of the Light. But I do, and I know what they need me to do. I won't resist when Helo comes for me; on that path is a greater price in blood than I care to pay or to live with again. If everything goes as the Angels have shown me, you'll get Starbuck and Hera back, and our people will gain more than even I can tell you._

_"Once you retrieve Helo and Athena, jump out of there--but whatever you do, don't come back for me. Wait for me in the Iron Queen's lair at the heart of the pomegranate. But if the Sun Angels don't come to you within six days, then leave, Bill. Leave that place and don't look back."_

Bill stared at the recorder for a moment as it fell silent before turning it off.

"Gods, I knew I should have pressed her harder," Tori said visibly upset.

"Tori?" Bill said gently as he gazed down into the young woman's tear-stained face.

"The President had a dream last week, sir," she replied after a deep, shaky breath, "a nightmare. She woke up screaming--it sounded like someone was gutting her. When Powell and I went in to check on her, she passed it off as just a reaction to stress and overwork. I should have known that something that produced a scream so terrified couldn't be just a reaction to work, but she was so disarming, sir."

"I know," Bill replied, putting his arm about her shoulders. She stiffened for a moment and then relaxed into him. "I know," he repeated.

"So she foresaw what Helo and Athena were going to do," Darius said. "That's probably why she sent Dunn off to get her meal. She was trying to make sure no one would get caught in any cross-fire."

"Does anyone know what these Sun Angels or Angels of Light are?" Tigh asked, breaking the silence that settled over the room like a shroud. "I admittedly don't know the first thing about the Scriptures, but I've never heard of them."

"The Angels of _the_ Light are related to the Mysteries of the Five," Bill said hoarsely as he released Tori. The young woman turned away and wiped her tears. "There's not much on them, only that they are in some aspects the Five themselves and in some aspects simply their servants. But I've never heard them referred to as Sun Angels before."

"So if she foresaw this, the way she foresaw Kobol and that the Cylons would find us on New Caprica, then we have to believe that she can get the three of them back to us with the help of these angels," Lee said; Bill could see the desperate hope in his son's eyes. 

"We can only hope, son," Bill replied.

"Even if that's true, how are we supposed to hook up with them again?" Saul asked. "Couldn't she have been a little less cryptic? What kind of directions are "I'll meet you in the frakking heart of a pomegranate"?"

Bill laughed sadly. "I haven't a clue, Saul," he said. "The only possible thing I can think of that it could be related to is the Dark Goddess, Persephone. Because she ate six seeds of a pomegranate, Persephone was obliged to spend six months in the Underworld with her husband, Hades, and then she would spend six months in the world with her mother, Demeter. So during fall and winter, a despondent Demeter allowed the world to die, and it would be reborn and be fruitful in spring and summer after she was reunited with her daughter. Like her mother, Persephone also embodied two sides; in summer, she was the Kore, the Maiden Bountiful, and in winter, she was the cold Iron Queen."

"It must have something to do with some sort of star coordinates," Lee said desperately. "It's the only thing that makes sense. Dad, was Persephone associated with any other particular scriptures or writings having to do with celestial phenomena we can see--or something that might look like it from here?"

"Not as far as I know," Bill replied.

"No, Apollo is right--they _are_ star coordinates!" Gaeta said excitedly. "And I think I know where." He dashed for the conference room door and Bill stared at his disappearing figure completely mystified. He nodded to the others; they followed Gaeta out and down the corridor to the CIC.

The young man was laying out his maps on the navigation table by the time they got there. "I found it just today," he said breathlessly. "Was analysing it when the call came in--"

"Found what, Mr. Gaeta?" Bill asked impatiently.

"A supernova remnant, sir, about twenty-five light years from our current position," he said laying down an astronomical photograph of the faint nebulosity on the table. It was roughly spherical, with shifting hues of reds and purples, and studded throughout it were hundreds of stars. "It is well off our intended path so I didn't get to the close analysis until today. Although it looks superficially similar, it's not like the star formation nebula we had to pass through to get to the Eye of Jupiter solar system; it's much, much smaller. Radiation also won't be a problem. Most of the stars and clusters you're seeing in that picture are hundreds--some of them--thousands of light years _behind_ the nebulosity." He tapped the upper right quadrant of the picture and circled an area on the large navigational map. "Except for this small open cluster of about half a dozen red dwarf stars, sir; they're fairly close to the neutron star at the heart of the remnant. But even so, the individual stars are separated by at least three light years and the closest red dwarf system to neutron star is still separated from it by over seven light years. I don't believe that there would be any danger from the neutron star's hard radiation if we were to wait on the edge of one of those systems, sir."

"The Iron Queen at the heart of the pomegranate," Bill Adama said hoarsely as he picked up the picture and allowed his heart to hope again. "Well done, Lieutenant Gaeta, well done."

"Thank you, sir," Gaeta said beaming.

#


	7. Chapter 7

Helo studied the President's bowed head; the halo of red hair glowed in the dim light of the Raptor. Roslin hadn't said anything since they'd left the fleet. She sat hunched over, elbows on her thighs, contemplating her tightly laced fingers. He wondered if she was praying.

"Helo," Athena called quietly and he moved forward into the co-pilot's seat. "We've found them--two basestars and a resurrection ship directly ahead. The other basestars are not in DRADIS range."

"Good girl--and the transponder?" he asked.

"In perfect condition; it matches the frequency profile of the raiders patrolling this system exactly," she replied.

"But you still don't think we'll be able to sneak onboard a ship with it," he said.

"Not a chance," she said grimly. "When Boomer used that trick to blow up the basestar in Kobol's orbit, they would have reprogrammed the hybrids to recognise the profile of any ship trying to dock with a basestar--not only the transponder. Besides, we don't know which ship Hera is on."

"All right, let's open a channel," he said after a moment. She looked at him in apprehension; he took her hand and squeezed it gently before kissing her. 

She opened the channel. "Colonial Raptor 647-Alpha to Cylon basestars," she said. "This is Lieutenant Sharon Agathon; we've come to parlay for your prisoners."

"Sharon," the voice of a Six purred. "Now this _is_ a surprise."

"Prisoners?" a Three mocked. "There are no prisoners here."

"I've come to get my daughter and Starbuck, D'Anna," Sharon replied evenly. "From what I understand Hera is ill--she won't be much use to you dead. I think we all know that with me she will thrive and grow up to be the mother of a new generation, but if she stays with you she will wither and die before you learn anything from her. As for Starbuck, I doubt you will ever get anything from her. Tell me, how many times has she killed Leobon this go-round?"

There was a long silence from the basestar. "And we're just supposed to give you Starbuck and Hera out of the goodness of our hearts," D'Anna sneered. "What's to stop me from turning you and your pitiful craft into a handful of stardust? You have nothing we could possibly want."

"You really don't want to _frak_ with me, D'Anna, or on your next resurrection--you simply won't; in fact, none of you will."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Six said, alarm shading her voice. "You think that because you're in a Raptor equipped with a Cylon transponder, you can get around our defences?"

Sharon laughed harshly. "I spent close to two years in _Galactica's_ brig thinking of nothing else but how to get back at them ... and at _you_. Since I found myself in love with one of them ... having feelings for one of _them_ above anything I've ever felt for any Cylon, which plans do you think got developed? And now with that lovely virus Baltar so thoughtfully found for you in the Lion's Head Nebula--"

Sharon laughed again, this time a lighter, more musical sound of genuine amusement as raiders closed to englobe the Raptor in a point-blank kill zone and an icon on her DRADIS screen suddenly disappeared. "Well there she goes," she said still chuckling. "I wondered how long it would take you to jump the resurrection ship out of here. Now, since that distraction is gone, you think we can get down to some serious discussions?"

"What's there to discuss? We kill you--end of discussion."

"And everything is always so simplistic with you, Cavil," Sharon said in a bored tone. "Have you never wondered why among all the Cylons, your model has never evolved into a true leadership role? You're little better than a Centurion. Everything is always so simple for you, black or white--no greys. Well I'm here to tell you that God is found in shades of grey, Cavil, and the devil is in the details."

"I see you've taken to talking in riddles, Sharon," Six said. "You sound quite like a Hybrid now, babbling incessantly about nothing." 

"I'll take that as a compliment, Caprica."

"How do you know that I'm Caprica?" Six asked defensively.

"Ask your Hybrid," Sharon replied with smug satisfaction.

After another long silence, D'Anna asked quietly, "Why are you here, Sharon?"

"I told you, I've come to trade for my daughter and Starbuck," she replied.

"And you still haven't said anything that would make us take you even remotely seriously. What could you possibly have to offer that would make us give up two such valuable ... resources."

"Oh come on, D'Anna," Sharon said contemptuously. "Do you really believe that Starbuck-- _Starbuck_ \--actually knew how to activate the Eye of Jupiter mechanism all by herself or found the planet, any more than jumping back to Caprica to get the Arrow of Apollo was all her idea? Perhaps you also think that she possessed the knowledge of how to use the Arrow to retrieve the first map from the Tomb of Athena. If you think that, then you're even more delusional than I thought, D'Anna. There has only ever been one person with Pythia's divine gift ... one puppet-master leading the Colonial fleet to Earth--"

"Roslin," D'Anna breathed. "You have Laura Roslin?"

"Got it in one," Sharon said with mock joviality. "Give the Cylon a prize."

"That's impossible!" Baltar shouted. "Adama would never allow them to trade Roslin. It's a trick!"

"Who said Adama had anything to do with it?" Sharon ground out. "I want my daughter and I'm very motivated to get her back. That woman stole her from me--I barely had a few hours of happiness after my baby's birth before Roslin told me that she'd died ... showed me a dead baby. I saved her life on Kobol; my _daughter_ saved her life and _this_ is how she repaid me! I may owe my loyalty to Adama and I'll probably be airlocked for this, or at best, spend the rest of my life in _Galactica's_ brig, but I owe Laura Roslin _nothing_. I want my baby and I will have her! Now, when you're ready to do some real talking, tell the other baseship to jump out."

"It's a trick, I'm telling you," Baltar said. "You can't seriously believe her."

"And you're going to believe a man who didn't tell you that when he injected Roslin with Hera's foetal blood to cure her cancer, her entire blood chemistry changed permanently?"

"What?" Baltar screeched in a high falsetto.

"Are you going to continue to believe a man who didn't tell you that while you were desperately looking among the young fertile females on New Caprica for suitable broodmares, what you should have been looking for was one middle-aged woman whose entire metabolism had been jumpstarted by my daughter's blood? A woman in whom human-Cylon hybrid DNA had already been incorporated into her stem cells, her bone marrow _and_ her germ-line?"

"But I didn't--I didn't know that!" Baltar stammered in obvious terror.

Sharon twisted the knife some more. "Oh come now, doctor," she said. "Cottle with his primitive instruments figured it out. Are you trying to tell us that a genius like you--winner of three Magnate Awards ... expert in Cylon technology and physiology--didn't?"

"I didn't!" Baltar was cut off mid-protestation as the channel went dead. 

Sharon made sure the channel was closed before smiling at Helo and letting out the breath she'd been holding for what felt like hours. 

Helo brought her hand to his lips and kissed it tenderly. "You were great, sweetheart," he said.

"Yeah, well let's hope they bought it," she replied, tension shading her voice. 

He leaned in to kiss her and then rose from his seat. Making his way back into the troop compartment, he found Roslin in pretty much the same position he'd left her. Like before, she ignored him as she sat contemplating her hands. It was as if he wasn't even there. He wondered if she was afraid.

"We'll probably be docking soon," Helo said breaking the silence. Slowly she lifted her gaze to meet his; there was no fear in her eyes. He expected her to say something, but as her silence continued, he became acutely uncomfortable beneath her steady gaze. "You won't be harmed and you'll be in a full flight suit all the way," he said, needing to explain. "We're not monsters you know."

"But you think I am," she said quietly.

He glowered at her, the old hatred boiling up again. There was no talking to her and she would never admit that she'd done anything wrong. 

"We just want our daughter back," he said tightly. He pulled the aerosol grenade from the holder he'd used to prepare it and held it up. "It's loaded with the Lion's Head virus from Doc Cottle's samples. Once Starbuck and the baby are onboard, I'll call out to you. If we run into trouble, all you have to do is press this button, throw it at the Cylons and get back to the Raptor. From what we know, at this concentration it should start affecting them all immediately--especially since the inside of the ship itself is partly organic. And I'll provide you with cover."

Roslin studied the small pewter-grey orb in his hand. "I understand," she replied in that same quiet voice.

#


	8. Chapter 8

"You can't seriously be considering this?" Dr. Gaius Baltar couldn't keep the edge of hysteria from his voice as he his gaze darted from one Cylon to another in the basestar's control centre. "Can't you see that she's bluffing?"

"It would be a very stupid bluff," D'Anna said dismissively, "and Sharon is not stupid--misguided maybe, but not stupid."

"One thing you must admit," the Eight originally known as Boomer said with quiet urgency, "The baby is becoming more and more ill. Simon has run experiment after experiment on her and still doesn't have a clue about how to treat her! Perhaps it would be better--"

"No!" Caprica shouted. "Blasphemy! Hera is _our_ gift from God!"

"She won't be much of a gift if she's dead!" Boomer retorted.

"Roslin may indeed be a greater resource than Starbuck or Hera," Simon observed clinically. "The fact that she is an adult may give us greater insight into the medical ramifications of Cylon-human hybrids and procreation. And if she _is_ also one with the ability to find the markers to Earth--"

"Starbuck was the one mentioned in the prophecy!" Leobon snarled; he frightened Baltar now almost as much as D'Anna did these days. " _She_ is the important one!"

"Important?" Cavil scoffed. "She's barely lucid most days, Leobon. The only times she seems to come around is to kill you and then it's off to the asylum with her again. On New Caprica she killed you six times in a couple of months; this time she's killed you what ... ten times already? I'm truly surprised you managed to resurrect this time."

Round and round and round it went as the Cylons argued with each other--each model married rigidly to his or her own views almost to the point of dogma. The vicious discord was becoming more prevalent and since finding the Eye of Jupiter, the acrimony had accelerated to the point where Baltar found that he could no longer interject the voice of reason and steer the conversation towards a more conciliatory tone or consideration of a more logical analysis. As it was, all he could do was find a spot out of the way and hope to present less of a target.

 _"How the mighty have fallen,"_ purred the familiar voice in his ear. However, the tone of her voice was one of complete disgust.

 _"They're your people, sweetheart, not mine,"_ Baltar replied to the apparition in his head. Though she was the physical epitome of Caprica--his original Cylon lover, Natasi--she was both demon and angel sent to torture or save him. Suddenly he found himself completely naked in a comfortable lounge chair on the patio of his lakeside house; she straddled his lap.

 _"They've lost sight of God's teachings,"_ she murmured licking the shell of his ear. _"No wonder they've lost their strength ... their cohesiveness."_

 _"Have they?"_ he asked rhetorically trying to fight his arousal. _"It sounds to me like they've simply begun to think for themselves--they're just not very good at it yet."_

 _"Which is why this is going to be very dangerous place for you to be very shortly, Gaius,"_ she said nipping at his right nipple. He felt himself harden beneath her, but desire warred with self-preservation and he pushed her head away from his chest.

 _"What is that supposed to mean?"_ he demanded.

 _"It means that when Roslin comes on board, it would be prudent if you could find elsewhere to be,"_ she said, _"because Sharon is right about one thing; they won't ignore the fact that you didn't tell them about Roslin's metamorphosis."_

 _"But I didn't know!"_ Baltar hated the whine in his voice, but D'Anna's wrath didn't bear thinking about. She had been quite scathing enough when she'd first found out; if she got time to think about it ... really get up head of steam--

Baltar shuddered; Caprica was still angry with him after he broke with her to follow D'Anna down to the Eye of Jupiter planet, so there was no help there. 

Natasi laughed delightedly. _"I will always be in awe of your ability to delude yourself, Gaius,"_ she said kissing him. _"You didn't know or you didn't want to know?"_ She combed her fingers through his thick hair, and then tugged it to pull his head back painfully, exposing his vulnerable throat. _"Do you think I don't know how you feel about Roslin? You want her approval--you want her love, even though you know she will never give it to you. I know you too well, Gaius; you always want what you can't have."_ She kissed the pulse point at the base of his neck, making him even more aroused. _"In any case, whether you knew or not, I doubt it will make a difference to them. So when you get the chance, Gaius, I'd suggest you do what you do best--run!"_

With that, she bit down on his shoulder--hard! And at that moment he came ... biting down on his hand, Baltar came back to reality as D'Anna put her hand through one of the displays, causing it to explode in a fountain of sparks.

#

"Helo, it looks like they're ready to do business," Sharon called from the cockpit. He swung the heavy rifle he had been double-checking over his shoulder and hurried over to her. The raiders no longer surrounded the Raptor and the other basestar was gone. The remaining ship had come out to meet them, looming large in the Raptor's canopy.

Caprica's voice came over the com system--curt and distinctly unwelcoming. "Bring your craft in on the beacon you should now be receiving," she ordered. "Do _not_ deviate from that flight-path." 

"Understood," Sharon replied.

Helo couldn't help but feel a sense of awe as Sharon brought the Raptor into the cavernous landing bay. No matter what the Cylons had done, he could still appreciate the sleek, elegant lines of the basestar's design. 

When they landed, Helo secured his helmet as Sharon did the same. "Let's do this," he told her, and then went back to finish getting Roslin ready. The flight suit was a bit too large for her, but it was the best they could do without arousing suspicions. Helo checked the seals on her gloves and boots before helping her to put the helmet on and secure it.

He tested the com. "Can you hear me?"

She nodded at first and then seemed to get the picture. "Yes, I can hear you fine," she replied.

Helo handed her the grenade. "If they try to advance on you, just press the button; if they don't stop, throw it at them," he said. "Then get back to the Raptor as fast as you can."

"Understood."

Helo readied the rifle and opened the hatch. Kneeling near the base, he took aim at the small group directly opposite. In front stood a smug D'Anna Cylon; next to her, a copy of Sharon held a small bundle in her arms. Helo's heart skipped a beat. Flanking them were two gleaming metal Centurions. A number of other human models stood behind them.

D'Anna reached back and jerked a small figure out of Leobon's grasp. Kara. A wave of anger flooded Helo; he'd never seen Kara Thrace--he'd never seen _Starbuck_ look so small and fragile and utterly defeated. Her hair was lank, stringy, and there were bruises on what he could see of her face. The hooded brown robe she wore seemed to swallow her up. D'Anna pushed her back to Leobon, who had to scramble to keep her upright.

The tall, blonde Cylon came forward. "Where is Roslin?" D'Anna demanded.

Sharon helped Roslin out onto the wing of the Raptor and then onto the deck. There was a flurry of movement from the Cylons.

"Stay where you are and send Starbuck with Hera now!" Sharon shouted, sidearm in one hand, while holding Roslin's arm with the other.

The Sharon copy cradling Hera turned and put the baby in Kara's arms. Kara then started forward hesitantly, head down--picking her way slowly as if navigating a minefield. Sharon let go of Roslin's arm and the President started towards the Cylons.

"Come on, Starbuck," Helo whispered to himself; his heart was racing. Roslin passed Kara and continued towards the Cylons. 

_Frak!_ Helo thought; the President was moving too fast.

"Ms Roslin, stop," he ordered. "Let them see what's in your hand." Roslin stopped and held up her right hand to show grenade, her thumb on the button. Switching over from the private channel, he called out to the Cylons, "Not one move from any of you--she's on a dead-man's switch and that grenade is filled with enough of the virus to turn this into a ghost ship in a heartbeat."

Even at that distance, D'Anna's venomous expression was still frightening to behold.

 _Hurry up, Starbuck,_ he prayed.

As if she'd heard him, Kara's pace picked up and she broke into a little run over the last few metres. Helo's heart tightened as Sharon took the baby from Kara and then gave her a hand up onto the wing. Starbuck scrambled past Helo into the interior of the Raptor.

Helo couldn't resist taking a moment to glance into his daughter's pale face as Sharon showed her to him. His baby's eyes were closed and her breathing fast and shallow--as if she had to work for each breath. At that moment, his heart broke and he had to force himself to focus on Roslin.

"All right, Madam President, you can come back now." 

Helo fully expected her to turn and start walking back to the Raptor; instead, she simply stood there with her back to him. "Ms Roslin, head back to the Raptor now." But the President continued to just stand there facing the Cylons. "What the hell do you think you're--"

 _"Frak!_ Helo, it's not Starbuck!" Sharon's shout detonated like a bomb and the world seemed to unravel about him. 

"What?" Helo turned his head reflexively and came face to face with Gaius Baltar's terrified visage. 

"Where's Starbuck, you _motherfrakking_ toasters?" he bellowed over focusing through his rifle sight again. _No! No! No!_ raced through his mind in despair. _We can't fail now--not when we've come this far._

Again, D'Anna dragged Starbuck from among the group of Cylons behind her and threw her to the ground. Kara went down heavily on her hands and knees, crying out in pain. Helo's heart plummeted to his boots. 

And suddenly, a quiet voice with steel at its core cut through his consciousness. "All right, D'Anna, you've had your fun," Roslin said, "now back off." To Helo's surprise, the Cylon obeyed, and for the first time he noticed that Roslin had discarded her helmet. 

_When the frak did she have time to do that?_ he wondered as he caught sight of it at her feet. 

Kara tried to rise and collapsed. "Kara, come on," Roslin said gently. "It's time to go home." Kara remained on her hands and knees, trembling. Roslin went down on one knee. "Kara," she called a little more forcefully now; the broken young woman didn't seem to hear her. "Kara--Starbuck! What do you hear, Starbuck," Roslin demanded, using Kara's and the Admiral's private code.

After a moment, Helo heard, "Nothing but the rain, sir," whispered in a horse, torn voice that broke his heart afresh.

"Then grab your gun and bring the cat in," Roslin said straightening up. She walked over to Starbuck and offered her hand to her. As she pulled Kara to her feet and steadied her, she said, "Your duty is done, Captain Thrace--it's time to go home."

Kara nodded and limped towards them; then she stopped and turned back to Roslin. "What about you, sir?"

"I'm not going with you," Roslin said facing the Cylons again. "That is not my path today. Go with the Gods, Starbuck--by the angels' grace, we _will_ meet again." Kara seemed to accept this, turning without a word and limping as quickly as she could to the Raptor.

"Roslin, what are you doing? Get back here!" Helo shouted as Sharon jumped down onto the deck to help Kara into the ship.

"I'm not coming with you, Captain Agathon," she replied in that same calm, serene voice that ate at his very soul now. 

Panic cut through him. "Godsdamn you, Roslin, get back here--we got what we came for!"

"Did you now?" she asked. "Well, never mind. Someone has to stay and hold them off long enough for you to get away, and with me standing here helmet-less, I know they won't try anything with the airlock--if they do, blow it." Helo couldn't believe what he was hearing, but as an awful sinking feeling came over him, he knew she was right.

"Get your ship into space and get back to the fleet, Mr. Agathon," she said. "They'll try to ambush you, but just stick to Athena's plan and you'll get back to _Galactica_ fine." Helo's heart stopped and he met his wife's equally stunned gaze; how could Roslin possibly know about Sharon's escape plan? "But you have to go and go now!" Roslin ordered.

"She's right," Sharon said hoarsely as she settled Hera in Kara's arms. "We're out of time here, Helo. We have to go."

"We can't just leave her--" Helo said, the horror of it flaying his soul.

"And if we stay, we'll lose everyone!" Sharon snarled as she raced for the cockpit. "We have to go now!"

Numbly, Helo closed the hatch; his last view of Roslin was of her still defiantly standing her ground against Cylons. 

The Raptor flew swiftly to the inner 'lock doors and as they closed behind them, it came to him in a flash how completely, stupidly naïve he'd been thinking that they could pull this off without losing anyone. As they floated in the darkened lock, Helo wondered if they would have to resort to nukes; at such a close range, the Raptor's survival was doubtful and Roslin would definitely die then as any explosion that would blow the outer doors would also breach the inner ones.

As opposed to the _fate worse than death you've left her to face,_ his conscience goaded.

Then the outer doors opened to a wall of raiders less than a kilometre away, their red cyclopean "eyes" scanning menacingly. 

Sharon pushed the Raptor's cold drive into an emergency spin and _Jumped !_

#

The sonic boom tore at Laura Roslin's sanity, resonating through her bones. The deck shook ominously and she fell to her knees, as did many of the Cylons. The grenade slipped from her grasp and rolled towards her captors; they gave a collective gasp of terror and scrambled back from it. The device emitted a shrill, rapid series of beeps and then stopped--and lay inert on the deck.

After a moment, D'Anna gathered up her courage to advance and nudge it with her foot. "It's a dud," she spat in disgust.

Laura rose to her feet and grinned at the Cylons. "Oops," she said.

A tall, leggy Number Six model pushed through the crowd. "The Raptor has escaped," she said and D'Anna's glower gave way to an ugly expression of barely restrained fury. "It Jumped straight from our 'lock and the backwash harmonics from hyper have unbalanced our Jump engines. It will take hours to fix."

This time Laura couldn't help but laugh out loud. "Oops!" she repeated through her giggles.

#


	9. Chapter 9

William Adama stared unseeing at the DRADIS screen. He had been staring at that screen for the last four hours as if willing it to change. The crew worked around him in silence. Saul Tigh wished his old friend would leave the CIC and get some rest; Bill had been on duty over sixteen hours. But Saul instinctively knew that there would be no rest for Adama--not from his duty and not from the guilt. 

After finding out about Laura's message, Tom Zarek and Wallace Grey had immediately held a press conference to explain that the President was suffering from exhaustion and had been taken to Galactica for medical observation and rest. That had immediately set off a flurry of rumour and innuendo and as Zarek had pointed out, that excuse would not hold water long if Roslin didn't return. Then once Zarek had brought the afternoon Open Quorum sessions to a close, he and Grey had stormed over to the old battlestar demanding answers.

#

 _"You sanctimonious bastard,"_ Zarek shouted as soon as the hatch on the Admiral's quarters closed, unconsciously echoing Saul's earlier assessment of Adama. But Tigh saying it and Tom Zarek saying it were two different things. Saul stepped between his friend and the former terrorist.

 _"You watch your frakking mouth, Mr. Vice President,"_ he growled. _"You will show respect for the Admiral of this Fleet or you will be thrown off this ship!"_

Before Zarek could respond, Wallace Grey said quietly, _"I want to hear the recording."_

Bill nodded and drew the recorder from his pants pocket. He sat down behind his desk and turned it on; as Roslin spoke, he didn't take his eyes off the recorder resting in his open palm.

_"... retrieve Helo and Athena, jump out of there--but whatever you do, don't come back for me. Wait for me in the Iron Queen's lair at the heart of the pomegranate. But if the Sun Angels don't come to you within six days, then leave, Bill. Leave that place and don't look back."_

As the recording came to an end, Grey took a deep breath and asked, _"How will you proceed from here?"_

 _"We'll wait for a few hours longer for the Raptor to return and then jump to the co-ordinates she gave us and wait there for six days,"_ Bill replied. _"After that, she'll either have returned with these angels of hers or we'll have to tell the people the truth; that because the Admiral of this fleet lost vigilance, two of his officers--one of them a Cylon--kidnapped the President of the Colonies to trade her to our enemies for their daughter."_

 _"Then there is such a place as this pomegranate?"_ Zarek's tone and attitude were a lot more conciliatory now.

Bill nodded. _"Mr. Gaeta found it only today--just around the time of the kidnapping,"_ he replied, _"and recognised the reference immediately. It's a supernova remnant just over twenty-five light years away. There is a neutron star at its heart and a cluster of six red dwarf stars; Gaeta has named it "Persephone's Pomegranate". I have to believe that she'll be there in six days, but she speaks of having to make the right choice from myriad possibilities she's seen--"_

 _"So she still may not make it,"_ Grey said hoarsely. 

_"Yes."_

Grey nodded as he held Adama's gaze; something tangible passed between the two men, but Saul could not say what. The silence stretched into minutes before Grey spoke again.

 _"Colonel Tigh, Mr. Vice President, could you leave me and the Admiral alone now please,"_ he said politely. _"We have some things to discuss. I'll catch up with you later, Tom."_

Tigh had to give Zarek credit--he knew when to keep his mouth shut. He'd simply nodded to the two men and followed Saul out into the corridor.

 _"What I wouldn't give to be a fly on that wall,"_ he said with a sardonic smile.

 _"What do you mean?"_ Tigh demanded, turning back to the Admiral's hatch in concern.

Zarek laughed. _"You do realise that Grey is in love with her also,"_ he said. As they resumed their walk down the corridor, Tigh stared at him in shock. _"Probably has been since the moment they met twenty odd years ago."_

_"You think they were--"_

_"What, lovers?"_ Zarek chuckled. _"I doubt it,"_ he said. _"Grey was married and far too honourable, and, from what she's said to me, far too good a friend to risk frakking with."_ At the junction corridor, he stopped and regarded Tigh with one of his insufferable smirks. _"Besides, her brand of White Knight seems to run to insufferable pricks with power."_

He laughed again as Tigh bristled at his aspersion on Adama's character. _"And if there's one thing I've learned, it is there's no accounting for a woman's taste, Colonel. But as the person in this fleet who has known her the longest, Grey is probably the only one who can acquaint our Admiral with the aspects of our Pythia he just can't seem to grasp. And I think that we can both agree, Colonel, she's far too good a woman to allow Adama to continue blundering around trampling her heart."_

It was then that it hit him like a thunderbolt; Zarek was in love with Roslin--maybe not head over heels in love, but enough that if she ever so much as glanced at him in that way, Zarek would come running. And Saul had to admit, if he was to be honest about it, since New Caprica, _he_ was a little in love with Roslin himself these days.

Saul shook his head and barked an incredulous laugh as he met Zarek's knowing gaze again. _"You think there's a man alive that woman has met that she hasn't done this to?"_

 _"With the exception of your Mr. Agathon?"_ the other man said quietly. _"I'd say very few. I suspect we all come around eventually, Colonel."_

#

Zarek's soft laughter was still echoing in Saul Tigh's mind when Gaeta called, "DRADIS contact!"

"It is Raptor 647-Alpha, sir," Dualla reported as the icon moved erratically across the screen. "Athena reports that they've sustained damage and requests a medical team as well as a security team to meet them when they land."

"Clear them to land; then inform Major Cottle and Lieutenant Burrell," Adama said tightly; his knuckles were white where he gripped the navigation table.

Without waiting for acknowledgement, Adama wheeled on his heel and strode from CIC. Tigh quickly turned the watch over to Gaeta and hurried after him. As Adama strode down the corridor towards the hanger deck, crewmembers instinctively got out of the way, most coming automatically to attention as he passed.

The hydraulic lift was just lowering the Raptor to hanger level as Adama stepped off the ladder onto the hanger deck with Tigh following close behind. The normally bustling deck was as quiet and still as Tigh had ever heard it ... as if everyone was holding their collective breaths.

#


	10. Chapter 10

As the Raptor's hatch opened, Bill Adama had never prayed as hard as he did at that moment. Meeting Karl Agathon's guilty gaze, he knew that his prayers were in vain. Agathon turned and crouched to lift a small, huddled figure from the seat nearest the hatch. Kara curled into him, hiding her face in his shoulder as he stepped out onto the wing and Bill's heart ached at the sight. 

Anders stood near the wing with the medics, his arms outstretched to receive his wife as Agathon knelt to hand Kara to him. Bill spared a glance for his son, standing with the other pilots and though his heart went out to him, he was glad that Lee--regardless of his feelings for Kara or impending divorce from Dualla--had made the decision not to stand between Starbuck and Anders anymore.

As Anders helped the medics to settle Kara on a gurney, Agathon re-entered the Raptor and returned with a terrified and visibly shaking Gaius Baltar, his hands tied behind his back. The collective cry of anger and shock reverberated throughout the hanger deck. Lieutenant Burrell, commander of _Galactica's_ Marine contingent, helped Baltar off the wing and summarily handed him over to two armed marines who marched him away.

At that moment, Sharon Agathon stepped out of the Raptor with a small bundle in her arms. Her husband reached for her and helped her down to the deck before stepping down himself. Adama waited until Sharon had handed the child over to the medic, Layne Ishay, before nodding to Burrell. The marine stepped up to Agathon, his hand hovering on his cuffs; Adama shook his head and Burrell dropped his hand, instead speaking quietly to the couple. Sharon nodded and lifted her gaze to meet Bill's. There were tears in her eyes as they preceded the marines from the deck.

"Colonel Tigh, set condition one throughout the fleet," Bill ordered. "Have Lieutenant Gaeta distribute the new co-ordinates and have all ships ready to Jump within the hour."

"Yes sir," Saul replied and headed for the phone.

#

When the universe righted itself after the Jump, Adama lifted his gaze to the Core--the part of the deck overlooking CIC--to where Laura often waited for him when she was on _Galactica_. Now that space, like so many he associated with her, was defined by her absence.

"All ships accounted for, sir," Dualla said, "and Major Cottle requests your presence in life station at your earliest convenience."

"Set condition two throughout the fleet and Dee, let Cottle know that I'll be down shortly," Bill said. 

Saul was on the phone with Lee. "Deploy the CAP, Major Adama," he said. After a moment, he hung and reported. "Combat air patrol deployed, Admiral."

Adama nodded. "You have the watch, Colonel Tigh."

"Aye Admiral, I have the watch."

Bill felt his friend's gaze on his back as he left CIC. His feet carried him to _Galactica's_ life station as if of their own accord. He dreaded what he would find there almost as much as he dreaded that Laura, despite her best efforts, would not return to the fleet ... and to him.

When he reached life station, he found Samuel Anders at Kara's bedside speaking in hushed tones. Looking away and stepping back to allow the young people their privacy, he suddenly felt Kara's haunted eyes on him; meeting her gaze, it held him motionless. She lifted a thin hand to Anders' face and murmured a few words. The young man glanced over his shoulder and then turned back to her nodded. Anders leaned in to kiss Kara's lips before leaving. 

Bill stepped up to the bed and sat on the high stool Anders had just vacated. Taking Kara's hand in his, he tried to warm her cold fingers.

"Hey Admiral," she whispered. "What do you hear?"

"Nothing ..." he husked. His throat closed as he took in the extent of her bruises and knew there were far more that he could not see. "Nothing but the rain, Starbuck," he said, finishing their playful greeting.

"Then grab your gun and bring the cat in, sir," she said smiling crookedly. Adama smiled through his tears as he cupped her face gently.

He nodded. "I'll certainly try, Kara," he said hoarsely. "I'll certainly try."

"I didn't want to leave her," she whispered suddenly, tears welling up in her eyes.

"I know," he replied.

"She wouldn't leave," Kara continued as if he hadn't spoken. "She said that it wasn't her path to come with us, but by the grace of the angels, we would meet again."

"Then believe in that, Kara," Bill said squeezing her hand gently. "Trust in her--it's all we have right now."

She nodded and her tears spilled at last as he smoothed her hair away from her face. He pressed a kiss to her warm forehead as his own tears threatened.

"Rest now," he said softly as Cottle came into his peripheral vision, "and I'll be back later to check on you."

A smile ghosted across her face, and for a split second Bill saw his old cocky Starbuck in her eyes; then she was gone, leaving the pale, fragile wraith before him. He gave her another kiss before following Cottle back to the CMO's office. 

"You look like you could use a drink," Cottle said taking a bottle of emerald ambrosia from his desk and pouring about a shot into each of two paper cups.

His first mouthful of the green liquor burned going down, but after a moment the warm glow spread from the epicentre of his belly to his heart, his limbs and finally his head. He sat down in the chair across from Cottle and took another sip. 

"So, how is she?" he asked.

"Kara?" Cottle said sipping his drink. "Physically, she'll be fine in a few weeks with some rest, time to heal, and once we get some food into her. The Cylons didn't frak with her sex organs this time ... in any way that I can detect that is. Psychologically? That's another story and in case you haven't noticed I'm neither qualified nor have the temperament to go mucking about in somebody's head. But she was tortured, physically and psychologically for what the Cylons thought she knew, and I'm not sure what we can do for her, Bill. She'll need to talk and come to terms with what they put her through--come to think about it, you're about the only person she really talks to in as much as she confides in anyone."

"I'll try to be there for her," Bill replied hoarsely. "But I'm her commander, Jack--I'm not sure that I'm the right person to help her through this. I couldn't help her after New Caprica."

"There is that," Cottle admitted.

There was silence for a few moments when Bill asked, "What about the baby? Hera."

The grizzled old doctor snorted. "What about baby Hera indeed ..." He slid a file folder over to Adama. Bill met his tired gaze and opened the file.

#


	11. Chapter 11

Karl Agathon paced the brig cell Sharon had spent over eighteen months cooped up in before Adama had decided to take a chance on her and made her an officer. Although he'd visited her there daily during that time, he'd never had to spend more than two hours at a time in there. Now it looked like it was where he and Sharon would spend the rest of their lives. But at least Hera was safe ... their daughter was safe; he had to hang onto that. He'd welcomed _Galactica's_ gut-wrenching Jump through hyper with relief and hoped that Adama had put as much space between the fleet and the Cylons as possible.

Now he prowled the cell. "All she had to do was return to the damned Raptor," he muttered angrily as he paced. Sharon said nothing, just sat motionless on the cot, her knees drawn up beneath her chin. "Everything went almost exactly to plan--all she had to do was just come back. But no, she had to play the _frakking_ martyr!"

"Helo--enough!" Sharon cried. Helo's head snapped up and he stared at her speechless. "We played triad with her _life_ and we lost! _We_ did it. We held a gun to her head and made her walk onto the deck of that Cylon basestar," she whispered. "And then she turned around and saved our asses." She laughed softly through her tears, regarding her hands as if she'd never seen them before. "I've hated her so long that I can barely remember a time that I didn't hate her--and even now I can barely imagine not hating her. But I refuse to lie--to myself, to you, or to the Admiral. She saved our lives!"

"Yes she did."

Adama's voice came from the open doorway. Helo turned and automatically snapped to attention; Sharon rose slowly from the bed and did the same. The Admiral entered the room carrying a tan file folder. He was followed by Tigh and Cottle. Two vigilant guards stationed themselves outside the door, weapons ready.

"Admiral--"

" _Mister_ Agathon!" Adama cut him off ruthlessly. "You and your wife are no longer officers on this ship. You threw away what trust I'd placed in you--the trust that this crew placed in you--you betrayed this entire fleet when you went behind my back, stole that Raptor, stole the virus and kidnapped the _President_ of the Colonies. All I want from either of you are answers to my questions. Is that understood?

"Sir--yes sir!" Helo replied through clenched teeth.

"Yes sir," Sharon echoed.

Adama's disappointment was palpable as he regarded Sharon for one long moment. "What happened on that basestar?"

"Everything went almost as we'd planned," Helo said angrily. "We gave Ms Roslin a grenade filled with the toxin for protection--they never would have dared move against her. Then Cylons tried to substitute Baltar for Starbuck--had him bring Hera to us dressed in the same robe Kara had been wearing when they showed her to us. But once we realised it, we demanded Kara's release and they complied. When Kara was in the Raptor, I begged Roslin to come back, but she refused. She knew that we had everyone we'd come for--even bagged _frakking_ Baltar in the bargain--but she still refused to come. She'd taken off her helmet ... said that she had to stay and hold them off. That they wouldn't frak with the airlock while she wasn't wearing her helmet."

"And she knew about my plan to Jump out directly from the 'lock, sir, so that it would unbalance the basestar's Jump engines and make it impossible for them to follow us," Sharon said hoarsely. "She said that if we followed it, we would get back to _Galactica_. It was like she knew everything, sir--she didn't even fight Helo when we took her from the _Rising Star_."

"So you just turned tail and left her to face the Cylons alone." Silence greeted Adama's words.

"It was never our intention to leave her there, sir," Helo said raising his chin defiantly. "She _chose_ to stay!"

"And why is that do you think?" Adama asked.

"How in Hades would I know that?" the younger man said frustrated. "For all I know she did it out of spite! Acting the _frakking_ martyr--"

Adama's powerful backhand caught him across the chin. Helo staggered out of his reach, before meeting the Admiral's murderous gaze. Adama threw the file he'd been carrying onto the bed. It fell open and the medical scans scattered across the white sheets.

"She did it because she knew that the _baby_ they gave you was nothing but _frakking_ Cylon copy," Adama spat in disgust.

Sharon collapsed onto the bed, shaking with the force of her sobs as she reached blindly for the scans with trembling hands.

"That's impossible!" Helo exploded. "You're lying!"

"I think that your _wife_ knows that I'm not," Adama replied.

"I hoped it was my imagination," Sharon whispered.

Helo stared at her in despair; a small, inarticulate whimper escaped his throat.

"All the way back in the Raptor, I felt her questing and hoped I was wrong," Sharon continued, tears flowing down he cheeks. "I kept hoping that it was something the real Hera did and I just didn't know it. I thought that because she was taken away so soon after her birth, I wasn't present to feel her manifest it."

"What is _questing_?" Cottle asked.

"She's a blank," Sharon sobbed brokenly. "She's querying for information--she's _requesting_ programming. It's what Cylons do when they're awakened before being impressed with a personality. It's why we usually keep blanks unconscious until a download is ready to be integrated and brought to consciousness."

"No," Helo whispered. "No! They couldn't possibly know she was a Cylon copy--there's no way to tell. Baltar's detector didn't even _frakking_ work!"

"But Ishay's does," Cottle replied and they stared at him in disbelief. "Baltar might have been talking out his ass about needing a nuclear bomb to read blood samples for the detector he finally built, but Ishay knew that his first explanation about looking for synthetic elements in Cylon tissue had some truth to it. So with over a year in which there was little to do but sew pilots back together after each brawl, she took up biochemistry to pass the time. She had a lot of time to think, so she went back to basics and hit upon something quite elegant and simple to test for. The compounds silica and germania. 

"Humans are carbon-based life. The original Cylons were machines with silicon-based circuits and chips. And although the human-form Cylons are carbon-based, they still employ a lot of silicon-based technology. They have silica pathways in their brains and nervous system, but they also use it to strengthen muscles, skin, connective tissue, bones--teeth. Makes you tough suckers, doesn't it." 

Cottle continued to regard Sharon as she sobbed softly. "And though the Cylons use a germania-stabilised form of biogenic silica in their bodies, the element silicon has a property that carbon doesn't have--it precipitates readily in aqueous solution. Humans also need silicon in their biochemistry, but only in trace amounts and we don't use germanium at all. Therefore, Cylons have more silica and germainia in their bodies than humans. Much of both compounds get recycled by their very efficient metabolism, but any excess still must be passed. A simple test shows that this baby's urine had three times Sharon's normal levels of silica and toxic levels germainia in it."

"Why?" Sharon asked in confusion. "She's a Cylon--her metabolism shouldn't be so inefficient; germania detoxification should be almost one hundred percent."

"We think that's exactly why Cylons usually come in the adult variety," Cottle replied and Sharon's face crumbled again. "Everything is highly integrated metabolically and stable. With infants, it's a whole new proposition--not enough body mass and a subtly different biochemistry. Furthermore, Hera is a hybrid; I'd say more human than Cylon. This clone is a Cylon based on Hera's DNA--my guess is that a true clone would have developed too slowly for their tastes, whereas a Cylon could be brought to Hera's developmental age very quickly. But clone or not--without strict regulation of the infant's germania intake--"

"They're poisoning Hera," Sharon cried brokenly. "If they're feeding her food made from what adult Cylons consume--" Eyes wide with horror, she clapped her hands over her mouth as if keeping it from being said would make it less true.

"They'll end up killing her, slowly and painfully," Cottle finished for her. "In fact, if you'd tried to breastfeed her when she was born, you probably would have killed her before we figured it out. In high concentrations, germania is nephrotoxic. The Cylons created this clone to study what was making Hera sick. When you showed up demanding her back, they probably figured that since she was dying anyway, they'd pull a switch--keep Hera, Starbuck _and_ Roslin. It almost worked, but you saw through Baltar, so they were forced to give up Kara. They also gave the clone a mild sedative to keep her unconscious, most likely to keep her from doing this _questing_ behaviour and alerting you too early."

"And Roslin sacrificed herself because somehow she knew that I'd chosen the false over the true," Helo said in utter defeat.

"Helo?" Adama said quietly.

He took a deep breath and met his Admiral's gaze. "There was this woman, sir," he said, "on the _Rising Star_. She was dressed in rags--smelled awful ... stale. She had this crazed look in her eyes and she wouldn't let me go. She asked me how many times would we sacrifice the goddess--how many times did she have to throw herself over a precipice because we choose the false over the true?"

Helo didn't seem to notice Adama's sharp intake of breath as he continued. "I wrenched my arm away--basically told her to get lost. Then she got the strangest look in her eyes and to me to go then, but that when I returned, I had to pray for the angels to come."

"Are you sure she said angels?" Adama asked.

Helo shrugged. "Angels of Light--Angels of the Light ... something like that," he replied. "I wasn't paying much attention."

"And this was before you kidnapped the President?" Adama asked and Helo nodded. "Do you have any idea who she was?"

"No sir," he replied looking now at the Admiral in confusion. "I'd never seen her before. Why?"

"Was she tall and thin, with a turban wrapped about her head?" Tigh asked, speaking for the first time. "Brown hair ... not very old--about forty-five or fifty?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Helo said. "Who is she?"

"She's Dodona Selloi, Admiral," Tigh said to Adama ignoring Helo altogether. "She's an Oracle from the Temple of Zeus on the coast of Aperos. I met her a few times down on New Caprica."

"You think she could help shed some light on this?" Adama asked.

"I haven't a clue," Tigh said. "I just thought she was a crazy woman hopped up on Chamalla--eats it with frakking candy--but then again, there was a time when I thought that Roslin was just a crazy woman hopped up on Chamalla."

"All right, see if we can get her over here," Adama said and Tigh nodded.

"In any case," Cottle said. "Tissue tests on Hera's umbilical cord and tissue samples I took when she was born, show a much lower level of biogenic silica and especially germania in her body, and if we're reading the tests right, her cellular chemistry remains stable with much lower concentrations than Cylons normally require--more than a hundred-fold decrease. Even so, it's still about three times higher than what humans require, but well within what would be supplied in trace amounts environmentally through normal human sustenance. That's why Hera thrived on New Caprica and why she's dying now."

"Isn't there anything you can do for her?" Sharon begged.

"Do? Of course there's something I can do for her," Cottle said irritably. "But fat lot of good the cure does her while she's with the Cylons. The clone is already responding to the transfusion--her kidneys were failing, but give her a couple of days and she'll be running around _questing_ for frakking information in no time."

"Transfusion?" Sharon gaped at him in confusion.

"Yeah," Cottle chuckled--a distinctly unpleasant sound; there was no humour in his eyes. "Didn't I tell you? Well, it turns out that all you need to beat it is a unit of human blood with a few bits of magic Human-Cylon hybrid DNA floating around in it, and pouf! Clean out the system, jumpstart the metabolism and one healthy Toaster baby coming up. I'd say that Hera Number Two was pretty lucky Laura Roslin had the _foresight_ to donate a couple of units a few days ago."

#


	12. Chapter 12

_On one hand, Laura Roslin had known what was coming and had prepared herself. On the other hand she cursed the Universe and the Gods._

_There is a certain sense in screaming yourself silent--a certain elemental freedom to scream at everything ... every hurt that has ever made you want to scream. For beyond such pain there is simply endurance._

_Her mind rebelled against helplessness only to be deluged in another cataclysm of agony. She did the only thing she could do; she screamed._

_And then a soft, soothing voice sang in the darkness, "Are you alive?"_

 

"Tell us what we want to know!" D'Anna Biers railed, finally turning down the gain on the machine.

"I have no life but this," Roslin whispered hoarsely, "to lead it here; nor any death, but lest--dispelled from there." She pointed to the screen filled with star formations.

"Nor tie to Earths to come," she said, tears raining down her cheeks. "Nor action new, except through this extent, the realm of you."

"Earth," D'Anna gasped, grasping at that faint hope. "She mentioned Earth--but what does it mean?" 

 

_"Yes! Yes!" she was jubilant. At last! At last! One to comprehend the vastness of the deeps and all the terrible beauty within._

_"I am the sea," she sang, "come drown in me, ten thousand fathoms deep."_

 

"Ahh ... On this wondrous sea, sailing silently," Roslin sang. "Ho! pilot, ho! Knowest thou the shore where no breakers roar, where the storm is o'er?"

Cavil slammed her back into the chair. "What the hell does _that_ mean?" he shouted. "She sounds as crazier than Starbuck and it's only been three days," he sneered turning away in disgust.

"In the silent west many sails at rest, their anchors fast; thither I pilot thee--" Roslin sat up, straining against her bonds. "Land, ho! Eternity! Ashore at last!" She collapsed back into the chair and passed out.

"At least we didn't have to listen to this shit from Starbuck," Leobon said angrily.

"What?" goaded a smirking Doral. "I thought you liked riddles."

Boomer looked at them in disgust. "Can't you see? This is torture," she said. "We won't get anything out of her this way."

"Well she certainly wasn't giving us anything willingly," D'Anna snarled, spitefully turning up the gain before walking away. Roslin convulsed, screaming hoarsely in mindless agony until Boomer could turn the machine off. One by one the other Cylons left the interrogation chamber until only Boomer and Caprica were left.

"It sounds like poetry," Caprica said softly as Boomer gently wiped the whimpering human's face.

"Yeah, poetry," Boomer replied bitterly. "I suppose the answer to torture could only be poetry. But between D'Anna beating the hell out of her yesterday, and Cavil and Leobon today--not to mention the machine, plus all the drugs they have planned--she'll be dead inside a week and then there'll be nothing for Simon to study."

"It must mean something," Caprica insisted as if Boomer hadn't spoken.

Boomer barked a hacked-off laugh as she removed the restraints on wrists torn raw. "Must it now? Well, let me know when you _frakking_ figure it out."

"I forget that you actually knew her," Caprica said regarding Boomer thoughtfully. "Careful Boomer--it wouldn't do to have the rest questioning your affection for these humans ... questioning your loyalty."

"You mean like you and Baltar?" Boomer ground out. "Wasn't that what that entire mess on New Caprica was really about? You getting back to Baltar?" The other Cylon had the good grace to look away. "Well, you needn't worry about my loyalties--I am a loyal Cylon. Even D'Anna cannot deny that other than those first weeks after resurrection, I've always passed their _tests_. But being a loyal Cylon doesn't mean that I have to _like_ watching humans be tortured or watching a child die slowly in horrible pain."

With a troubled look on her face, Caprica turned and left the room, leaving Boomer to her solitary task of caring for Roslin. She cleaned up the Colonial President as best she could, before lifting her from the chair and carrying her to the adjoining cell. She lay Roslin down on the narrow cot and pulled the thin blanket over her.

As she rose to move away, Roslin caught her wrist. Looking down into her eyes, Boomer saw the same intelligence that she'd first seen when--as the newly-sworn Colonial President--Roslin had asked her to take her Raptor and lead any stranded ships she could find back to Colonial One. Back then she'd been a loyal Colonial pilot, Lieutenant Sharon Valerii, stationed onboard _Galactica_ with no idea of her true nature. But all that was destroyed when her Cylon programming had taken over and she'd tried to assassinate Adama. 

Boomer sat back down on the edge of the cot, but the moment was fleeting and only madness lived behind the windows of woman's green eyes now. Roslin lifted Boomer's hand to her lips and pressed a gentle kiss into the palm. Boomer held her breath as Roslin reached up to caress her face.

"Of all the souls that stand create," Roslin whispered raggedly, such that Boomer had to lean in to hear. "I have elected one. When sense from spirit flies away and subterfuge is done ... when that which is and that which was apart, intrinsic, stand, and this brief tragedy of flesh is shifted like a sand ... when figures show their royal front and mists are carved away--behold the atom I preferred to all the lists of clay!"

Boomer didn't know what Roslin's words meant, but as the human's emerald eyes fell shut again, something within the young Cylon broke. She sat for a long time gazing down into the older woman's face, before rising and leaving the cell.

She drifted through the corridors aimlessly, arriving as she often did lately, at the Hybrid's chamber where corridors converged in the heart of the ship. Boomer crouched at the edge of the Hybrid's pool, listening to the Cylon--integrated into the ship to serve as its guiding intelligence--as she babbled incoherently. Suddenly, the Hybrid grabbed her hand, nearly pulling her into the pool.

"Come, sweet Messenger," she said, bringing Boomer's hand to her lips. "Come drown in me, for I am both ship and sea." A sudden numbing jolt of electricity raced up her arm. Boomer snatched her hand away, staring at the creature in shock. She shook the pool's nutrient gel from her fingers; it was the same hand Roslin had kissed. "Yes, fathoms deep I dream of sleep and sleep my dreams away; for deep within, I have seen the dreamer is the dream this day."

And it was then Boomer realised what bothered her so about this encounter besides the electric shock; for the first time in her experience, the Hybrid had referred to herself in the _first person_ or shown such awareness. Blood pounded in Boomer's ears like the surf as she stared into knowing brown eyes. 

"Oh, Guardian!" the Hybrid called to some unseen entity that she gazed at in the distance. "Promise me our messenger will be, bound by time, but in time free. Yes! Yes!" Returning her fevered gaze to Boomer's face, she whispered urgently. "Wait, but wait not long, the angels come in cataclysm's storm on ships of light for thee. Go swiftly, Messenger, gather to your breast, that which is they and we, and the Guardian's subterfuge that is she. And I, upon that great wave's crest, will spread like foam upon the sea!"

The Hybrid convulsed in her pool, splashing a tidal wave of gel over the lip; Boomer scrambled back from it. The ship heaved in response. 

Boomer felt the startled queries as one by one, Cylons linked in--and then she heard the Hybrid's answer.

"Unbalanced in the burden between quantum realities; seeking a new fulcrum between God and poetry."

And heart in her throat, Boomer turned and fled. 

#

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who don't recognize it, much of the poetry in this chapter is by the incomparable Emily Dickinson, and the rest are my poor scribblings.


	13. Chapter 13

In the basestar's control room one individual from each of the seven Cylon models present thrust hands into the gelatinous medium of the control interface, seeking answers to the ship's behaviour.

"The Jump systems have become dangerously unbalanced," Doral said. "Cascade failure is imminent."

"Why?" demanded Caprica in confusion. "Repairs are nearly complete--those systems should be restored within the hour."

"It's the Hybrid," Leobon croaked. "She's fighting us!"

"Control her!" D'Anna snarled.

"We can't," Simon rasped, raw horror dawning on his dark face. "Her governors have gone off-line."

"She's locked the repair crews in and begun venting engine coolant inside the ship," Caprica cried. "They are suffocating!"

"We have to shut her down," Eight said. "Now!"

"We can't from here," D'Anna replied. "She's cut us out. The failsafe must be brought on-line manually." 

"The resurrection ship is holding ready to Jump out," Doral reported. "Our sister ships want to know what's wrong."

"Could it have been Roslin?" Leobon demanded. "The Lion's Head virus?"

"I don't see how," Simon replied. "There was no trace of the virus in the grenade or on her person anywhere! No, this is different."

"I'm directing the closest Centurion to the failsafe control console," D'Anna said triumphantly. "We should have control in a few minutes."

"Hurry!" Caprica whispered through the pain of their dying brothers and sisters.

#

Boomer raced to Roslin's cell. The other Eight inside the torture chamber was prepping a needle; she turned to Boomer in confusion. "What are _you_ doing here at a time like--"

The needle was wrested away and in Boomer's hand before her double had time to complete her question. Ruthlessly, she jabbed it into the other Cylon's neck and emptied the contents into her jugular. Fumbling for the vial as she lowered the Eight to the deck, Boomer quickly refilled the needle, gave her another dose and dumped her to crawl around with her every synapse set on fire.

Hurrying to Roslin's side, Boomer frantically shook her awake. "Get up ... get up!" The Colonial woman muttered incoherently. "I don't frakking have time for this!" She hauled back and slapped Roslin across the face. "Get up--what have you done? What's going on?" she demanded as Roslin's vacant eyes fluttered open.

"The brain is wider than the sky, for, put them side by side ... the one the other will include with ease, and you beside."

"Frak! More poetry?" Boomer helped Roslin to sit up.

"The brain is deeper than the sea, for, hold them, blue to blue ... the one the other will absorb, as sponges, buckets do." Roslin cupped Boomer's face and lifted her chin as the young Cylon knelt to put shoes on her feet. "The brain is just the weight of God, for, lift them, pound for pound ... and they will differ, if they do, as syllable from sound." 

Boomer remained motionless, staring into Roslin's fathomless eyes for a long moment before another violent lurch of the ship shook her from immobility.

"Frak!" she repeated, stuffing Roslin's foot into the second shoe. "There's no time for this shit--"

"I agree, Boomer," a calm, collected voice said softly. Startled, Boomer looked up into a pair of amused green eyes.

"Ms Roslin?"

"Yes--help me up." Roslin winced as Boomer put one arm about her waist to steady her as they left the cell. "Now, let's get Hera, get a Raptor--and get the _frak_ out of here."

"Yes sir," Boomer replied before she realised she'd agreed to anything. 

Their progress was slow down the corridor and Boomer was only thankful that they didn't have too far to go. Inside the nursery, there were four rows of bassinets--twenty in all. Boomer watched as Roslin hobbled over to them, reaching unerringly into the third bassinet of the second row to retrieve Hera.

"How did you know that one was Hera?" she asked in shock; for a Cylon it was simple as Hera was the only one not _questing_ for data. Boomer didn't think that anything Roslin did anymore could surprise her ... and then she surprised her.

Roslin smiled. "I know this child," she replied.

"Come on," Boomer urged. "I have to get a weapon in case we run into opposition."

A sudden explosion threw them to the deck; Roslin just managed not to drop Hera. All the children wailed piteously, terrified. Boomer scrambled over to her and took the baby before helping the other woman to stand.

"That wasn't the Hybrid," Boomer said. "That was weapons fire!"

"Forget the weapon," Roslin groaned, almost doubled over in agony. "Let's get to the Raptor--the angels are here and if the Hybrid doesn't destroy this ship, they will!"

"What angels? What is going on?" Boomer demanded, trying to keep a good grip on the now screaming child and help Roslin walk. "And what the _frak_ did you do to the Hybrid?"

"The angels--long story," Roslin puffed, "but the Hybrid and I had a meeting of minds, you could say. Chamalla and torture are simply wonderful for expanding the chaos that is the human mind."

"I'll have to remember that!" D'Anna stepped from the cross corridor just behind them. In her hands was a very large gun. "I should have known it would be you, _traitor_ ," she spat as Boomer stepped between her and Roslin.

"Let us go," Boomer said still trying to shield the frail woman behind her as they edged backwards. "Hera is dying--the Colonials may be able to cure her and Roslin will never tell you anything; she's too strong for us. D'Anna, the ship is dying; we need to get out of here!"

"Not you," D'Anna sneered. "You're going nowhere--I'll see you ... your entire line boxed for this! And definitely, they're not going anywhere! Besides, God won't allow Hera to die, and Roslin--I'm going to enjoy wringing the directions--"

Caprica shot from the side corridor and tackled D'Anna from behind, causing her shot to go wide. They both went down in a tangled pile of limbs. A second shot rang out just as Caprica, straddling D'Anna's hips, caught her head in a vice-like grip and twisted it sharply; a twig-like _snap!_ echoed in the corridor. Caprica slumped forward onto the body beneath her.

Boomer thrust Hera into Roslin's arms and ran to the one Cylon she ever considered a friend. The light was already fading from Caprica's eyes when she turned her over and helped her sit up. 

"Get out of here, Boomer," Caprica gasped, slumped against the wall like a rag doll; blood flowed from the wound in her belly, staining her fingers crimson. "Go ... get Hera to safety. Tell Gaius--tell Gaius I love him," she pleaded.

Boomer knew there was nothing to be done for her. On retrieving D'Anna's gun, she made her last promise to a Cylon. "I will," she said, looking into Caprica's eyes for the last time. "I promise I'll tell him."

Without looking back, Boomer hurried over to Roslin and hustled her down the corridor towards the docking bay.

#

As Boomer strapped her into the Raptor's co-pilot seat and settled Hera snugly against her, Laura finally remembered to breathe.

 _Not a good idea_ , she thought with a sudden urge to laugh as a lance of pain shot through her and she gasped inarticulately. The Cylons had definitely broken something deep inside her. 

"Hang on." 

She barely heard Boomer's quiet command as the Raptor lifted off the deck. Their flight from D'Anna's and Caprica's broken bodies was all a blur and Laura could sense it all unravelling around her now; her carefully woven tapestry was becoming a tangle of so many disparate threads. So many futures all tangled up now.

Another spear of searing agony stabbed her gut.

"Frak! The doors won't open," Boomer said. "I don't suppose you could call the Hybrid on the Chamalla hot-line and ask her to open the _frakking_ bay doors." The Raptor circled back to the far end of the bay facing the doors.

"She's gone now," Laura said with certainty. "Down, down, down into the deeps where neither Gods nor men may follow."

"Well that helps a lot!" 

Laura looked at the frightened, uncertain young woman next to her. _Woman. Cylon. Frak! Whatever_ , she accepted at last as she stroked Hera's feverish little head. 

"Just do it, Boomer," Laura said, reaching across to the instrument panel to squeeze Boomer's hand. "It'll be all right."

The Cylon looked at her in surprise. "So you say," she whispered shakily.

"So say we all."

"So say we all," Boomer echoed and pressed the button. A single missile streaked out and detonated against the inner airlock blast doors, tearing a great hole in them. The shockwave pummelled the Raptor and Boomer fought to control the bucking craft. As she was slammed back into her chair, Laura clutched little Hera for dear life and nearly passed out from the pain.

The Raptor shot through the tear and through the narrow opening of the outer doors that seemed to be stuck in a semi-open position. Around them space caught fire and burned. Directly ahead a new sun blazed in the centre of a Cylon formation of three relatively undamaged baseships trying to defend the one the Raptor had just left. 

Laura watched the extravagant slaughter in awe as waves and waves of Cylon raiders attacked the miniature sun and burned like so many Icarus for their folly. And flitting among the raider squadrons, like deadly fireflies among a swarm of hornets, were a number of smaller, spherical "suns", destroying all Cylon craft that came close to them. 

Suddenly a basestar disappeared in a boil of incandescent fury; four tiny "suns" shot through the expanding globe of debris. Three peeled away to engage Cylon raiders, while the fourth continued towards the Raptor, filling most of its canopy and blotting the battle out.

"What _is_ that?" Boomer breathed, jaw slack. 

"Angels of the Light," Laura whispered at last, "come to bear our souls away."

A sardonic voice filled the Raptor's cabin. "I take it you're the ones we're supposed to meet?" Though strangely accented, it sounded like a fairly young man's voice.

"I--I guess so?" Boomer replied uncertainly.

"Are you the Guardian or the Messenger?" the voice queried, more professional now. More tiny "suns" clustered around the Raptor, blinding Laura with white light.

Again, Boomer hesitated before replying, "The Messenger, I think, but I have the Guardian with me and also a child. They both need serious medical attention."

"All right, Messenger, prepare for tractor; I'll tow you back to Angel Base." Laura felt the Raptor shake violently--a sudden shift in gravity flattened her into her seat, forcing the breath from her lungs ... and then everything went black. 

#

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, the divine poetry in this chapter is by Emily Dickinson.


	14. Chapter 14

" _Shit! Shit! Shit!_ Angel Base, this is Sun Angel Four--they're coming in cockeyed on momentum alone! Brian, have Liam and his team meet them in the hanger. The ship they're in is made of goddamned toothpicks--as soon as the tractor hit it, it started to disintegrate!"

"Copy that, Mage," Brian replied. "Just ease her down the chute--catcher's mitt is ready." Mother extended a null-grav chute almost to the shield perimeter. The shield corona directly above it disappeared as the alien ship entered the chute and vanished from sight.

"Roger that, Base," Mage said, "she's popped the cherry; you should have her on internals now."

Tony's booming voice came over the com system a moment later. "All right boys and girls, the chick's in the nest. Haul ass back to Base--the Twins say it's time to burn. That starship's drive is about to go supernova!"

Mage did not need to be told twice. All around the snapping corona of shield energy, blank spaces appeared as each fighter matched its shield frequency to Mother's and slipped inside her shield perimeter. As Mage slipped through the one the chute had left behind, it stripped his ship's shield corona to heal the breach, leaving only the fighter; Mage switched to manoeuvring jets. Ahead of him, the small quicksilver spheres that comprised the rest of the squadron, converged on Mother's cavernous docking bay.

As they docked, he could hear his fellow pilots' shouts and catcalls over the com system; he could hear the relief in their voices ... and in his own. A successful mission in which no one was lost was reason enough to celebrate. Finding definitive proof of other _humans_ in this crazy galaxy made it doubly so.

Inside the bay, he bought his fighter sphere to mate with her docking port; well technically, according to Liam, the docking ports were more like teats the smaller ships used to siphon energy and nutrients from Mother, but Mage was damned if he was going to think of it that way. He shuddered expressively as he pushed through the port's perimeter membrane onto the deck. Behind him, the membrane regenerated almost immediately.

As he made his way across the deck, Blade high-fived him with an almost giddy laugh, which was weird to witness, because Blade--while generally being the biggest pain in the ass you could find--didn't get giddy. But then again, all his friends were acting giddy as they pushed through their own ports' membranes.

Liam's medics were clustered at the open hatch of the odd-looking ship. The laughter died abruptly as the other pilots registered the medical team's frantic work on the occupants from the craft. 

A dark-haired young woman sat hunched over on the wing with her head between her knees--she was probably the one Mage had talked to. The Messenger. Mage could barely make out the long red hair of the person on the anti-grav gurney as Manua and Grans administered CPR-- _the Guardian_ , his mind supplied--while all he could see of the child Liam was working on was one tiny arm and hand.

They had been searching for these people for so long--ever since Mother and the Twins had sussed them out of the ether that awful day three years ago--it felt odd to have them finally on board.

As the teams hurried away with the gurneys, Grans went over to the young woman. Smoothing the hair away from the distinctly Asian-looking features, she asked, "How are you feeling now, my dear? Do you feel able to stand?"

The girl looked up into the old woman's face; Mage wondered if the Commodore's grey hair and kindly blue eyes fooled the younger woman. 

"Who are you? Where am I?" the girl asked apprehensively. "What's going on--where are you taking Roslin and Hera?

"My name is Jessica Logan, but everyone here calls me Grans or Grandma Jess," she replied gently. "You can as well if you wish--Liam calls me Lady Jessica sometimes when he wants to harass me--" The young woman gave her a blank look and she laughed. "It's a long story. You can even call me Jessie if you like. But Mrs. Logan was my mother-in-law and I have no wish to be her, okay?"

The girl nodded with a faintly confused expression as she stood up unsteadily.

"As for where you are, our ship is called _Solange_ , but more often than not, we just call her Mother," Grans continued, steadying her charge. "I assume that Roslin is your companion?"

"Yes, Laura Roslin," she replied, "and the baby is Hera."

"And you are?"

#

Boomer regarded the kindly face that she was sure hid an iron will that belied the warm Grandma exterior.

"Boomer," she said in resignation. "I'm just Boomer now, I guess."

A wave of giggles greeted her response. " _Boomer!_ " a young pink haired woman said incredulously. "What kind of name is Boomer?"

Boomer wrapped her arms around herself. "It's a pilot's call-sign," she replied. "When I first started flying, I had trouble with my landings--I couldn't stick them and kept skipping across _Galactica's_ landing pod. Boom! Boom! Boom! So I became known as "the Boomer". It, unlike my landings, stuck."

"So what's your real name?" asked a boy with blue hair; like the girl, he appeared to be in his early twenties.

"It's--it's complicated."

"How complicated could it be?" he asked. "What name did your parents saddle you with?"

"I never had any parents--all right!" Boomer blazed feeling suddenly, unaccountably, overwhelmed. "There never was a Sharon Valerii. Her parents never died in a tragic mining accident on Troy ... she never grew up in an orphanage ... in fact she never grew up at all. She was a lie--I am a lie! I'm nothing but a _frakking_ toaster, a homicidal machine. I don't have a mind or a soul--I have programming and this is the second _frakking_ body I've been downloaded into. Roslin is the Guardian you came for and Hera is probably your _frakking_ Messenger. So put me out of my misery and just flush me out of a _motherfrakking_ airlock before I kill you all!"

There was absolute silence on the deck except for the harsh, wracking sobs that Boomer couldn't seem to stop. They tore at her throat and squeezed her heart as the strange young people stared at her in shock. The little old woman drew her into a warm--surprisingly strong--embrace, stroking her hair and back. 

"It's ok ... everything will be all right, Boomer," she said. "Let's get you to the medbay and looked after; your Ms Roslin and Hera will be there. There'll be plenty of time later to figure out who and what you are." Boomer pulled away, opening her mouth to protest and then shut it at the stern look in the old woman's eyes that said she would brook no contradiction. "Come," she said. "I think we can trust you not to go kamikaze on my old ass without provocation." As she steered Boomer towards the open circular hatch in the far wall, she called to the pilots, "You kids get the deck secure and then get to your stations. We'll be rigging for the dive shortly."

A ragged chorus of acknowledgements followed them out into the corridor bathed in winter-blue light.

#


	15. Chapter 15

Gaius Baltar sat curled up on the bunk in his cell, staring through the bars at the identical cell across from his. His gaze flicked to the young sergeant guarding him; every attempt he'd made to engage the young man in conversation had been met by stony silence. 

Baltar had heard of this marine from Roslin's stay in this same brig cell, and if he was a betting man, he would bet that Roslin hadn't escaped the brig without significant help from the then Corporal Venner.

 _"But you have none of Roslin's charm, Gaius."_ Her voice purred in his ear before he saw her standing there in shimmering aquamarine dress. His sultry blonde angel stalked around him and his cell vanished. They stood upon the Acropolis above the ancient City of the Gods on Kobol in the dying embers of sunset. 

_"You are not their dying leader,"_ she continued, her hair ruffling slightly in the cool breeze. _"Yet."_

 _"So this is why you wanted me off the basestar?"_ he said angrily. _"So I could sit in that cell and rot?"_

She chuckled. _"You won't rot in that cell, Gaius,"_ she said. _"They'll throw you out of an airlock first."_

_"Very funny."_

Below them the magnificent city burned as the great galleons carrying the Thirteen Tribes of Kobol rose into the skies. One would go to the trinary star system and settle on the worlds of the Twelve Colonies; the second would cross the galaxy to settle the Thirteenth Tribe on a small blue planet far away. Earth.

 _"What are we doing here?"_ he asked irritably.

 _"Watch,"_ she commanded. He complied in resentful silence, growing more and more irritated.

When they reached orbit, the first ship winked out of existence; Gaius knew that he shouldn't have been able to witness that, but he'd learned long ago not to question the logic of her visions. 

Once the ship was away, Gaius turned to her. _"What the hell is it exactly do you want me to--"_

His question was cut off by a searing light that slowly arched across the darkening sky. The second galleon was facing in a different direction. The direction of Earth. The bolt of light slammed into the great ship. A new sun blossomed in Kobol's night sky and died a few seconds later.

Baltar gaped in shock. _"What the frak was that?"_ he shrieked.

 _"The act of a vengeful god who refused to let his people go,"_ she replied quietly.

 _"But that couldn't have been the ship of the Thirteenth Tribe,"_ he said in confusion.

She smiled enigmatically before disappearing and leaving him once more in _Galactica's_ cold brig. The noise of the hatch opening startled him, drawing his attention again to Sergeant Venner. Baltar rose from the bunk and walked over to the bars as Cottle's medic, Ishay, entered behind two marines. Her mouth was pressed into a thin, grim line and her eyes were cold. She was carrying a metal tray covered with a white cloth.

Baltar backed as far away from the bars as he could get and flattened against the cold bulkhead. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, panicked as Venner's keys jangled. "What's going on? I haven't even had a trial yet! I haven't even seen a _lawyer_ yet!" he screeched hysterically as the sergeant opened the cell door and the marines entered, enormous guns pointed directly at _him_. Gaius Baltar. Magnate-award wining scientist. Former President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol.

Ishay laid the tray down on the bunk and proceeded to put on a pair of surgical gloves. She spared him a thin smile as she spoke. "Relax Doctor," she said holding up a plastic specimen jar. "I'm just here to collect some blood and tissue samples. Now, first up--think I can get a urine sample?" 

Baltar stared at her open-mouthed ... uncomprehending. 

Her smile gave way to irritation. "Frak!" she said. "Well, I suppose I'll just have to take the pants and wring them out." 

Behind her, the marines snickered.

#

"And I think everyone wants to know when we will be allowed to see and speak to President Roslin, Mr. Vice President," Playa Palacios asked. Adama frowned as the reporter's question came over the wireless; the press and Quorum were growing more and more vociferous in their demands to see Roslin. It had been six days since the kidnapping--nearly five since they'd Jumped to the "Pomegranate" and still no sign of Laura or her angels.

"... requires complete bed rest," Zarek was saying when Adama forced himself to focus again on the broadcast. He didn't know how long the old terrorist could keep stalling them, but he had to admit that Zarek was doing an admirable job. "I'm sure everyone here appreciates that in light of President Roslin's medical history, it is not an unreasonable request to allow her a few days rest. She has worked tirelessly on behalf of this fleet and will continue to do so, but she's only human--a human suffering from extreme exhaustion. So please, I implore you to be patient. Thank you; that will be all."

Bill switched the wireless off as the "analysis" segment of the program started off immediately with who was to blame for "Roslin's shamefully deteriorated condition" and why no one had caught it sooner. Of course, the current talking head had "noticed it well before the Open Quorum" and was of the opinion Adama was to blame. 

_He isn't far from wrong_ , Bill thought sardonically. The only thing keeping the braying asses at bay was the fact that _Galactica's_ pilots had found a planet in the system they'd Jumped to from which they could re-supply the fleet's sorely depleted food-stuff with something more than algae. 

It was an extremely unlikely occurrence to find a mature, human-habitable planet in a red dwarf star system, but this system was a binary with two close-orbiting dwarf stars. Gaeta believed that the confluence of the double stars plus the radiation the system received from its proximity to the neutron star, as well as the planet's own active geology, had made it ripe for life to take hold.

Bill really didn't care about _the why of it_ at the moment, only that once again she'd led them to salvation; he wondered if she'd known about the planet, but decided that it really didn't matter. What mattered was that because of her belief ... her faith ... they had found it. 

Though the planet was extremely cold, there was a narrow equatorial region from which edible plants and even fresh meat could be harvested easily enough. Bill had relocated the ships to orbit the planet and for the last three days, his Raptors had been filling the container and agro ships as quickly as everything could be tested by Cottle and the few scientists they had left to make sure they didn't pick up any unwanted contaminants or parasites again. 

_And there is nothing better to distract the people than the prospect of filling their_ frakking _bellies._

Bill sighed; that was an uncharitable thought. For the most part _the people_ had been fine; it was the press and politicians that were making his life miserable with their bullshit.

He rose from his desk with the intention of checking in with CIC and then taking some time to walk the decks of his ship, as was his wont. As his hand gripped the handle to the hatch, his eyes fell on the book, _Dark Day_ , lying on the edge of the coffee table. He'd given it to her at the beginning of their journey--a gift to a woman who loved books and mysteries, and, at the end of the world, had not one to read--but she'd returned it when she thought she was dying. After her miraculous cure, he'd tried to give it back, but she'd smiled and replied that it had been a gift, for she too, never lent books. Like so many things about her, he'd missed the significance of her words till now.

He'd taken it off the shelf the night before because it was something tangible of her that he could hold and he'd been afraid to play the recording yet again for fear of damaging it or battery depletion--there were few enough resources in the fleet without wasting them unnecessarily. 

_Dark Day_. 

"That seems to be the running metaphor between us, isn't it, Laura," Bill muttered quietly to himself. They had met on the darkest day and emerged from that darkness alive. Together and apart, they'd lived through some very dark days, but always at the end, they'd emerged on the other side, together, into the light. 

Bill prayed that this _dark day_ would be no different. He found himself staring far too long into space; in the back of his mind he heard her say, _"Get out there and stop being a maudlin old man, Bill. On the other side of every dark day, there is always light. Do what you must, Admiral Adama, but we will find each other again in the light."_

Bill shook his head and walked out the hatch.

#


	16. Chapter 16

_Reaching ... grasping ... yearning to be filled with the All ... knowledge poured in at the speed of light ... at the speed of thought ..._

_"We are naught but thought ..."_

_White light fractured through the prism of all light ... she strives to reconstitute coherence in the weaving of component colours ... fractal patterns from the spinning wheel of Time ..._

_There! There! Just beyond the moment ... Tantalus ... reach ... reach ... reach ..._

_"Breathe, child, breathe ... breathe ... breathe ... breathe ... breathe ... breathe ... breathe ... ... ..."_

 

Her head broke the surface of the resurrection pool. The long painful gasp tore at her throat as she forced air into her lungs and then out again. D'Anna looked up into the faces of a Six and another Three. Flinching away from the Six, she clung to the arm of her sister Three. 

"I heard the voice of God," she cried brokenly. "Touched the wheel of Time ..."

"It's all right, you're here with us now," Three replied stroking her face gently. D'Anna wanted so much to explain ... needed so much to explain, but her sister would never understand. Looking up at the other models surrounding her, she knew that none of them would ever understand and she despaired. The only one who seemed to get it was Baltar, and now he was gone ... it was all gone.

A painful birthing cry drew D'Anna's attention to the neighbouring resurrection pool. It was a Six. _Caprica_.

" _She_ caused us to lose Hera and Roslin," D'Anna said venomously. Caprica shivered violently; there was fear in her eyes as her gaze darted to her fellow Cylons. "She let the Traitor, Boomer, take them. She's too enamoured of the humans ... too in love with Baltar. She should be _boxed!_ "

"We know," Three replied gently wiping the gel from D'Anna's face. "We know that Caprica is becoming dangerously individuated and we will have to watch her very closely."

"Watch her?" D'Anna shrieked in outrage. "We have just lost God's only child of the new generation because of her and all we're going to do is _watch_ her?"

"Yes," said the Leobon kneeling at the foot of her pool. "Caprica is still Cylon enough to think only of ensuring our future in God's love." 

"In allowing Boomer to take Hera, she has ensured that God's daughter will live," Cavil said, stroking Caprica's face gently. "The humans will cure her; Roslin will see to that. And Boomer was right--we would not have been able to break Roslin. We see that now and we will follow the fleet where she leads them."

"Then what was the point of all this?" D'Anna said angrily.

"Knowledge," an Eight replied. "Information is the key to all. We will analyse all we've learned and add it to our store of knowledge."

"But your actions have caused us to lose a significant source of information, D'Anna," Leobon said and she gaped at him in confusion. "But this is only one of your trangressions that has led us to decide to box _your_ consciousness."

 _"What?"_ she shouted trying to push out of the pool, but finding herself unaccountably weak. Her sister Three held her down in an iron grip as she struggled feebly. "I wasn't the one that let Roslin go!"

"We're not talking about Roslin," Doral said.

"The Hybrid did not resurrect," Eight said. For a moment, D'Anna could not fathom the import of her words, and then the horror of comprehension flooded her mind. " _You_ killed the Hybrid and she did not resurrect!"

"That wasn't my fault!" she said frantically. She met Caprica's pitying gaze.

"Caprica tried to reason with you, but you wouldn't listen," Doral said.

"I was trying to save the ship!" D'Anna shouted as cold dread spread throughout her weakened body. "The Hybrid was unstable! She'd taken control of the Centurion I'd sent to manually activate the failsafe. I couldn't have known that she wouldn't download. This was all Roslin's fault! It was all a trap. I heard her talking to Boomer; she'd taken Chamalla--used it to reach the Hybrid's mind and corrupt it."

"Yes, we know," Cavil replied smiling. "But why try to save the ship? If it was destroyed, we would all have still resurrected and in all probability so would the Hybrid."

"You can't know that," she said. "She might still not have downloaded."

"No we couldn't know for certain," Three said looking down sorrowfully into her eyes; her grip on D'Anna's shoulder tightened. "But _you_ have become dangerously individuated, sister. You no longer hold ensuring a Cylon future and Cylon equality as your governing principle. You hoard knowledge and strive for more--strive to see the face of God ... to hear His voice ... to know His will ..."

D'Anna gripped Three's arm as the other snaked beneath her chin. "I only wanted to serve Him better," she gasped out struggling frantically. "It is not wrong to seek knowledge!"

"No sister; you have lost your faith," Three said. "In seeking the faces of the Final Five, you seek to know His will ... His mind ... His plan. You seek to be his equal!" The pressure against D'Anna's windpipe was becoming unbearable and her mind was beginning to fog. "God does not require us to know His plan; He only requires our faith!" 

D'Anna felt the sudden torsion in her neck and her mind _exploded!_ Expanding ever outward into the void between hurtling electrons ... atoms ... galaxies ...

#

Karl Agathon could not sleep. He lay on his side in the darkness listening to his wife's steady breathing for a while before sitting up. He rose, stretched, and then walked over to the steel wire reinforced forceplex window with the phone that people could use to talk to the cell's occupants.

There was no one in the other room. Almost every day during Sharon's incarceration, he'd come to that room to speak to her; it looked so different now on this side of the glass. There were days when she'd been despondent and wouldn't acknowledge him--especially after she'd been told that Hera had died. On the rare occasion he'd managed to get permission to visit her ... to actually hold her, it almost hurt worse than not being able to visit. Because in the end, he would always have to leave her.

Helo could appreciate the irony now that he couldn't leave.

_"We played triad with her life and we lost!"_

Sharon's distraught voice echoed in his mind. _Roslin_. It always came back to Roslin. If she hadn't interfered--set this whole frakking series of events in motion, none of this would have happened. But no, she was always trying to control everyone and everything. Where Hera belonged had not been her _frakking_ call to make! Everyone seemed to forget that. 

No, even Adama was now squarely on her side--and Helo understood that. You don't frakking trade the President of the Colonies away for a Cylon baby and expect anyone to stand by you. Even if she was a baby-stealing, two-faced _bitch_! 

He took a deep breath; they'd played a high-stakes hand of triad and not only had they lost, they'd been duped into taking home a counterfeit instead of the real prize. And now she was still out there ... on a Cylon ship getting sicker and sicker ... and all he had was a prayer that the same two-faced bitch could somehow work a miracle to save his daughter.

Yet as he stood there in the darkness, Helo knew he still hated her; he couldn't _stop_ hating Roslin. All his life, he'd always been happy-go-lucky. He'd never really hated anyone in his life--nothing could get him down because he was always sure there would be a tomorrow. Now, everything good in his life was tainted by that twisted hate that he seemed to be drowning in.

And staring into the dim observation room, he found he had never really cared if Roslin lived or died at the hands of the Cylons; his only regret was that he hadn't gotten Hera out--that he hadn't foreseen all the possibilities and had allowed himself to be tricked.

#


	17. Chapter 17

Laura woke to a soft male voice; a voice that spoke of kindness and gentleness. For a moment she wondered if she was dead, but then the dull ache of her body told her she was still very much alive and in pain--she was just too shot-up with painkillers to feel its full fury.

"Here, let me help you sit up," the voice said and she realised the man wasn't speaking to her. She turned her head in the voice's direction and watched as a young red haired man helped Boomer to sit up, manually adjusting the front half of the bed to support her back.

"Where am I?" Boomer asked groggily.

"You're in our medbay, Boomer," the man replied. "Do you remember my Gran bringing you here?"

"Yes," she said. "Then Jessica Logan is actually your grandmother?"

He chuckled, a deep, warm rolling sound. "Yes, Grandma Jess is my grandmother--my mother's mother," he replied. "My name is Liam Logan McKay."

"You call her Lady Jessica when you want to harass her," Boomer murmured to Roslin's surprise; when did she have time to find all that out?

Liam looked up from the instrument he was studying and laughed again. "Told you that did she?" he said. "It's from an old book I loved to read as a young teen--actually I still love it. The Lady Jessica was the mother of the hero, who was also the book's Messiah, and she was wise, determined and an all around kick-ass lady, just like my grandmother."

"How long have I been out?" Boomer asked after a long moment.

"Almost five days," Liam answered. He sat on the edge of her bed and took her hand in an amazingly gentle, almost intimate manner. "After your little freak-out in our hanger, Gran thought it would be best if we sedated you long enough to determine the nature of your biocybernetic construction and make sure that there were no obvious traps or pitfalls physically built into you."

"They're all most likely to be up here," Boomer said quietly, sorrowfully, pointing to her head.

"True," Liam acknowledged. "Now, what name do you want me to put on your records--Boomer is a bit odd, and I understand from Gran that you were actually named Sharon Valerii."

"That was before, when I thought I was human," she replied. "You see the humans of the Twelve Colonies created a race of machine slaves, but the slaves revolted--"

"Yeah, slaves tend to do that," he said grimly. "Sounds like these Colonials forgot some history somewhere along the line--that and Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics."

"What?"

"Sorry, it's a long story or rather a series of short stories," he said laughing. "Another book I loved as a boy--remind me to tell you about it sometime. So you belong to that race of rather homicidal cyborgs we just fought?"

"Yes," she said; Roslin heard again the shame in this particular Cylon's voice. "Cylons. We're called Cylons and though we started out as machines, we made ourselves human forms. There are twelve models of human-form Cylons--I'm an Eight. I was a Cylon sleeper agent in the Colonial fleet with no idea of what I was, but then they activated me to assassinate Adama; I don't really remember doing it. The whole experience is like watching a vid in my head. Then one of the deck crew shot and killed me and I resurrected among the Cylons, all my memories--everything downloaded into a new body ... this body. And I knew then that everything I knew about myself was a lie, yet I was still me and I'd done some terrible things. But now there's also another Eight among the Colonials--another Sharon Valerii; well she's Sharon Agathon now. So the only name I'm left with for my own is Boomer."

"I see," he said quietly. "Then what about Rose?"

"Rose?" she croaked, looking at him in confusion.

"Yes, Rose Valerii," he said. " _Sharon Valerii_ did terrible things and died for her sins, but I get the feeling that you've tried to do good things. And even if they don't always work out that way, I think it's in your nature to try. There's an ancient book where I come from--in it is a beautiful flower described only as the "Rose of Sharon". So perhaps from Sharon can come Rose; a good person despite her thorns."

Tears flowed down the Cylon's cheeks and she stared at him in wonder and gratitude. Finally she shook her head in acceptance, and again, Laura Roslin was struck by the surety of her feelings that this Cylon could be trusted. 

"Good," he said smiling at her. "Rose Valerii it is--call sign Boomer--and when you feel up to it, we'd like you to submit to a telepathic screening from Mother and the Twins; they should be able to suss if you have any hidden personalities or imperatives that might be dangerous to us."

Boomer looked at him in obvious confusion. "I thought Mother was what you called your ship," she said. "How can she scan me telepathically?"

"Well like you, Boomer, Mother is a rather complicated being," he said seriously. "Three years ago, your people--the Cylons--killed countless human beings--" His voice broke and he had to clear his throat. "In the space of a single day, they slaughtered billions and billions of humans across worlds numbering ten and two, as the Twins put it."

"Yes, we destroyed the Twelve Colonies of Kobol," she said in a low voice. "How do you know when it happened? You don't seem to be from the Colonies--everything, all the technology I've seen here is so different. Where are you from?"

"No, we're not from the Twelve Colonies; we were slaves on a world we called Tartarus," he replied; Boomer's breath hitched and she stared in shock as he continued. "But we were onboard Mother the day they were destroyed, in transition between the stars where there is no time. In that place, Mother is everywhere and nowhere. In that state she exists in the interstices between time and anti-time, matter and anti-matter, energy and anti-energy. She is a creature of the stars themselves and, in as much as we understand her, already old when this galaxy was young, because she comes from a different galaxy altogether--a much older place. 

"That day she heard them die--all those billions of human beings on the thermonuclear pyre of your war--all those souls swept away on solar winds. And every last one of those souls flayed Mother in a holocaust of agony, and because we were on her, inside her ... existing with her in that place, we felt them die too. It was nothing compare to what she felt, what the human twins who are telepathically bonded to her and act as her pilots felt, but it was enough to make us unanimous in our resolve to put our long journey home second to finding those survivors who in their agony called out to the ancient Gods of Olympus for help."

Boomer was openly weeping now and Roslin felt her own tears course down her face. The young man put his arm around the Cylon and hugged her gently for a moment before continuing. 

"The Twins barely brought Mother out of transition that day," he said quietly. "And then they were catatonic for two months afterwards. Ironically, we think it was because we were onboard her--because she knew us and our minds--that is why she felt those deaths so keenly. She has existed so long that she's felt entire civilisations die--innumerable worlds wiped out by wars and natural cosmic cataclysms--and it's never affected her this way. She took us in as an act of kindness almost a decade ago. We were a bunch of frightened, ignorant slaves fleeing brutal alien masters, when the ship we fled in became caught in the gravitational influence of the star where she'd gone to die--to make one last transition to nothingness and never come back. I guess we're lucky she was curious about us and that our terror was strong enough for her to hear through the ether of time and space; we really don't know. But we're grateful for it and I think we have given her a reason to live again, to start exploring the galaxy again--everything she's already seen is completely new to us--and I also think that we've even motivated her to start having her own babies again."

 _"Babies?"_ Roslin croaked involuntarily and Liam turned to her in surprise. 

#


	18. Chapter 18

Hopping off Boomer's bed, Liam hurried over to check one of her monitors. "Ah, Ms Roslin, I see you're awake," he said. She shot him her best "schoolteacher to dim student" look and he blushed before chuckling heartily. "Yes, of course you're awake. Sorry Ma'am." He pulled a thin siphon from the head of her bed and held it to her parched lips. She sipped greedily at the cool water.

"Now what's this about your ship having babies?" she demanded as the siphon snaked back into its receptacle.

His smile widened. "Well, Mother is an intelligent, sentient, _living_ being," he said. "Not exactly organic--something that seems to be made of equal parts asteroid rock, some kind of quartz-like crystal and rather exotic transuranic compounds in her ground state, and which feeds on solar plasma, can't exactly be termed organic. However, she is a form of life and all forms of life have a biological need--if you will--to reproduce."

"The smaller sun-like ships that fought the Cylons--those are her babies," Boomer said, face alight with the realisation.

"That's correct," Liam replied. "We call them the Sun Angels--" Roslin's breath caught to hear the name spoken only in her dreams finally spoken aloud. He looked at her curiously. "It's a word-play on our name for Mother."

"What name is that?" Laura asked.

" _Solange_ ," a new voice said. 

Roslin turned her head to the newcomer and found two identical faces looking back at her. The first thought in her mind was that there was a pair of Cylons among her saviours, but she realised immediately what a recent prejudice this was; she'd been a teacher long enough to have had a few sets of identical twins and even a set of identical triplets go through her classes. 

These two young women were undoubtedly "the Twins" Liam had spoken of--Mother's telepathically bonded pilots. They looked to be in their early twenties, had beautiful faces with rich, milk chocolate complexions, but while one stood nearly two metres tall, was solidly muscled and serious-eyed, with a mass of black ringlets cascading down her back and obscuring part of her face, the other was seated in a hovering chair-like apparatus that reminded Roslin of a wheelchair. The second twin wore a wide smile and her short, curly hair was dyed electric pink with a neon green spray of curls at the front, but she had an air of frailty her Amazon-like sister did not possess.

"Mother's name is Solange," the seated twin said pleasantly as she directed her chair closer to Roslin's bed. "It means "sun angel" in one of our languages. Hi, I'm Elisabeth and this is my sister, Alexandra."

Laura tried to sit up, but the young doctor gently, but firmly forced her to lie back down.

"Oh no you don't," he said, "I've just managed to get your insides put back together--someone did one hell of a stomp on your diaphragm, bruised one kidney, your liver, fractured a couple of ribs and caused a lot of internal bleeding. You're tranked right up to the gills, but you'll be right as rain in a month or two if you don't do anything to aggravate your injuries while you heal."

"It's all right, Ms Roslin, Boomer," Elisabeth continued. "We're glad to meet you both at last."

"I'm pleased to meet you all as well," Laura replied. 

"Yes, thank you and Mother for the rescue," Boomer said.

"We were simply where we needed to be, as were you," Alexandra said quietly.

Laura met the girl's steady gaze. "Thank you anyway," she said.

The girl nodded and turned to Liam. "It's time to move Hera to the Core," she said. 

The young man smiled and led her to the incubator on the far side of the room. As he checked the instruments, Laura asked, "Where are you taking her?"

"To a place we call the Core--it's not Mother's brain exactly, but sort of like where her mind resides," Elisabeth replied, as Laura looked at her dubiously, trying to wrap her own mind around the concept. Liam and Alexandra carefully guided the top half of the incubator onto a floating platform. 

"You guys go ahead; I'll keep an eye on things until you get back, Liam," Elisabeth said and as they left, she turned her attention back to Laura and Boomer. "Mother needs to be acclimated to having Hera in her Core before the next transition, but it's the safest place for her right now. She's still in very fragile condition and we've put her into a kind of stasis, slowed her metabolism and are using a dialysis rig to clean her blood. But what she needs is a bone marrow transplant or at least a blood transfusion and although you're a match for some reason--though you're not genetically related--you've had way too much damage and internal bleeding to spare even a few millilitres. Anyway, we thought Boomer could be a donor since she seems to be a closely related relative, but she's a Cylon and there are compounds in her blood that would kill Hera--actually, we think that their food is what poisoned her. We're hoping that your doctors can help her."

"Our doctor can," Laura said with a wry smile. "Before I left the fleet, I made a blood donation just in case."

Elisabeth grinned broadly. "So _you're_ the precog we've been sussing!" she exclaimed. "No wonder my sister had a cow when you came aboard; I figured it was because you were the Guardian, but Alex is so much better at sussing these things once we're out of the ether than I am."

"Precog?" Boomer asked.

"Someone with precognitive sense," the girl explained, eyes shining with admiration. "It's the ability to see future events."

"The Colonials believe that she's the reincarnation of an ancient Oracle called Pythia," Boomer said thoughtfully, "and that she was the foretold Leader who, at the end of the world, would guide them to salvation."

"Oh wow!" Elisabeth said, clearly impressed. "That is _so_ out there it isn't even funny! Alex is going to totally freak when I tell her!"

Laura chuckled at her reaction; it felt strange to have someone look at this as something wonderful and impressive, yet almost completely normal. 

"It's not what you think, Elisabeth," she protested. "These abilities are just a side-effect of taking Chamalla extract--"

"Nah-ah," the girl said shaking her head. "You're a latent; that much Alex and I know for sure," she proclaimed to Laura's utter shock.

 _"What?"_ she squawked before she could sensor herself. "What do you mean I'm a latent?"

"I assume Chamalla is like some kind of drug?" Laura nodded and the girl looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well, the first time you started taking it was about a month or two after your worlds were destroyed," she said smiling at their flabbergasted expressions. "You kept taking it for about six months and then stopped--you were really weak then. Then you got stronger and didn't take Chamalla again a few days ago, when you took a pretty hefty dose; Alex and I were afraid you'd OD--over-dose or lose your marbles." 

The young woman looked smug and clearly pleased with herself as she waited expectantly for the question she knew Laura would ask. 

"How do you know that?"

Elisabeth giggled, looking for a moment all of twelve years old. "Because we've tasted your mind, my dear Ms Roslin," she said gently as she took Laura's hand. "Alex and I know you; we became aware of you _before_ you ever took Chamalla. The drug didn't make you what you are, it only seems to strengthen and focus your ability to suss out the future. Though you don't know it, you've probably used your abilities all your life and everyone, including you, just thought you were simply a really intuitive person. And you probably would have gone on that way, clicking along, smoothing the path--if not for yourself, then for others--and putting everybody's lives in order if the Colonies hadn't been destroyed and caused you to wake up."

Laura was overwhelmed by the girl's blithe explanations. "What do you mean when you say that you've tasted my mind?" she asked, biting back the fear that threatened to seep into her tone.

"It's not as bad as you think," Elisabeth replied. "It's not about reading your mind or anything like that. Our telepathy doesn't work that way. Just like you couldn't tell me if I'm going to get laid by the big ox I call my boyfriend tonight--" Her eyes snapped with humour and Laura just had to laugh as she caught her drift. "I can't tell what thought you're thinking at any moment, even when I'm in the Core with Alex and Mother sussing the ether, I can't read people's minds. But I can feel the culmination of your thoughts and actions, feel you playing the timelines as a musician would an instrument. It's hard to explain and even harder to grasp, but it's like listening to someone playing a piece of unfamiliar music, yet automatically knowing--even while the musician is playing--that it is meant to be sad, or joyful, or uplifting for the soul. I can tell you what direction it's coming from and I can hum the tune, but I can't play it back to you because I don't have the talent or know the notes. But that's why Alex and I never realised that Mother's "Guardian of the Citadel" and our precog was the same person. Anyway, we've sussed glimpses a couple others in your fleet like you, just nowhere as massive as you are."

"Massive?" Laura said.

The girl grinned widely again. "Hugely talented," she translated as Alexandra returned with an older woman--Liam's grandmother, Jessica, Laura presumed--and a man who was about thirty-five or forty years old. "Alex, guess what," Elisabeth said excitedly. "Ms Roslin is also the precog."

"The Guardian is the precog?" the man asked.

Alexandra held Laura's gaze for a moment with disquieting intensity and then nodded. "I didn't know for sure before, but yes, it susses," she replied.

"What's this Guardian and Messenger thing all about?" Boomer asked.

"That's more to do with Mother," Elisabeth explained brightly. "Mother doesn't do individual names--to her, you are what you are, what you have been and what you will be." 

"You said you were a pilot, Boomer," the old woman said and the Cylon nodded. "Then think of it as Mother's own call sign for you."

"Exactly," Elisabeth said. "So Ms Roslin is the "Guardian of the Citadel" probably because she fiercely guards her people and will do anything to protect them, and that's what comes through to Mother most, even more so than her precog ability because for her it's something to be used in the service of her people. You're the Messenger because you either have a message to deliver, or have delivered a message, or you yourself are the message. Maybe the message you're meant to convey to humans is that a Cylon can overcome her programming and choose to embrace her humanity."

Boomer looked down at her hands. "If that's the message, then that's not me," she said at last. "The other Sharon--her call sign is Athena now--she's already shown the humans that. She's Hera's mother; she fell in love with a human and betrayed the Cylons, broke her programming to protect him and Hera. Hera is a hybrid and that's why I read as a genetic relative; her mother and I are clones of the same Cylon model. So you see Athena is the Messenger, not me."

"No," Alexandra said firmly; Boomer's head snapped up. "You are the "Messenger from the Deep". Mother does _not_ make mistakes about what people are. What you are may change with time, so her title for you will change as well, but right here, right now, _you_ are the Messenger. Those examples my sister gave are just that--examples--only Mother knows what your true message is, but when the time is right, so will you." Boomer nodded silently as the girl held her gaze. "As for Hera's mother, she is the "Scribe of Tomorrow", while Hera is the "Bridge to Things to Come"--probably because she's a human-Cylon hybrid, but her twin is "Defender of the Way". These things we know from Mother."

The silence that followed Alexandra's pronouncement was broken by the young man. "Ok girls," he said. "Perhaps we can table this for later. Ms Roslin, Boomer, I'm Antonio Bellini, the nominal captain of this circus we call a ship," he said sardonically and Roslin chuckled.

"How do you do, Captain Bellini," Laura said.

Boomer murmured, "Pleased to meet you, sir."

"Oh Captain Bellinnnni, sir," Elisabeth teased and dissolved into a puddle of giggles with her sister; the old woman chortled merrily.

Antonio Bellini blushed and shooed them with a little wave of his hand. "Please, it's just Tony," he said. "As you can see from this bunch, we're not terribly formal around here, and the word _respect_ is just a song title to the Terrible Two."

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T! Find out what it means to me; R-E-S-P-E-C-T! Take care ... TCB! Awww!" carolled the girls before bursting into another spate of giggling. 

Tony's mouth twitched as the laughter died away. "Anyway, I just wanted to inform you that we'll be ready to make a transition in two days, but we need to know where we're going. I assume you want us to take you back to your fleet?"

Laura nodded. "Yes, but I don't have any co-ordinates for where they are now," she said. "I just told them where to wait for me."

"And where was that?" the old woman asked. "I'm Jessica by the way."

"Pleased to meet you, Jessica," Laura replied. "It was something that came to me in a vision and I just knew that Bill ... ah Admiral Adama would figure out where it was. So I told him to wait for me in the Iron Queen's lair at the heart of the pomegranate. That's all I know."

The young man looked at her, flabbergasted. In a perverse way, Roslin felt an irrational bubble of happiness at being able to flummox at least one of these strange people who'd had turned her entire conception of the universe upside down in one hour.

_"What!"_

#


	19. Chapter 19

Tony rubbed his forehead tiredly as he stared at Laura. 

"Oh boy ... Look Ms Roslin, I'm used to weird directions with those two--" The harried man pointed to the clearly amused twins. "I captain a living ship--something straight out of our science fiction--I've been kidnapped by aliens, frozen for thousands of years, been a slave on an alien world ... so I bloody well _know_ weird! But what the hell am I supposed to do with "the Iron Queen's lair at the heart of the pomegranate"?"

Laura had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. "I'm sorry," she said, swallowing her urge to giggle in a hiccough, which made her side spasm in acute pain. "My sort of um ... talent doesn't exactly run to stellar navigation. I just try to interpret what I see in my visions as best as I can, and right now I know that they're waiting among the seeds of the pomegranate. If it's any consolation, I know you'll find it."

The twins had no compunction against laughing at their frustrated commander. Elisabeth patted his arm. "Don't worry Tony, we'll help her suss it out," she said giggling.

"That's right," Alexandra continued. "Mother senses that they're fairly close by and we have a rough direction; it's just a matter of narrowing it down. It might take a bit of time, but we'll do it."

A sudden thought banished Laura's giggles, sobering her right up. "We should get to work immediately though," she said. "I told the Admiral to only wait in the pomegranate for six days and then leave. The Cylons are still hunting the fleet and they can't afford to stay in one place for long."

Dead silence greeted her words. "Oh my sainted aunt," Tony said at last. "Ms Roslin, you've already been here nearly five days already--"

"And you were on the basestar for three and a half days," Boomer interjected and Laura's face paled.

"And Mother definitely needs to feed for at least another day and then it takes time to get ready--how long are your days?" he asked hope suddenly flaring in his eyes.

"Twenty-four standard Caprican hours," she said hoarsely. "On Caprica a day is approximately twenty-four hours and fifteen minutes, but that's compensated for at the summer and winter solstice to keep our clocks in time with our planet's rotation and orbit."

"Our day is also twenty-four hours," Tony said in obvious disappointment. "And I'm going to assume we both mean the same thing when we say an hour--sixty minutes."

Laura nodded. "That's right," she said hollowly. "Which means even if we do locate the pomegranate, Bill's already gone."

"Not necessarily," Boomer said and Laura's eyes flew to her face. "He kept looking for Starbuck that time she was shot down, even long after he knew her oxygen should have run out. I think that you're at least as important to him as Kara is--probably more so. And he was willing to wait for her even after Cylon raiders found the fleet; I'm betting that he'll wait for you."

Tony's voice broke the short silence. "All right, it's all we have to work with right now," he said briskly. "Beth, Alex--break out your maps and work with her to narrow down those co-ordinates as quickly as possible. And let's hope your admiral interprets your six days with the widest possible margin, Ms Roslin."

With a nod to her, he turned on his heel and left. 

"All right," Jessica said. "Let's get started." 

Elisabeth moved her chair closer to Laura's bed. Manipulating some controls on her chair; it projected a large transparent globe--about half a metre in diameter--which appeared to float above the bed, showing in three dimensions hard, brilliant stars like diamond dust against velvet black space. "These are the star formations for fifty light years in the direction Mother says your ship is located."

Laura stared at the star map with a sinking heart. Boomer hopped off her bed and came to stand next to Jessica. She leaned against the foot of Laura's bed as she, too, studied the map.

"None of this looks familiar, girls," Laura said in dismay. "It all looks wrong."

The twins looked at each other and Alexandra took a deep breath. "All right, wrong how?" she asked.

"In my visions, I see shapes, colours," Laura replied. "I see an actual pomegranate, red and ripe and full, cupped in the palm of a hand. But the skin is translucent and I can see through it to the seeds inside, and I also know there is a hardness at its heart--the Iron Queen. However, I can see _Galactica_ floating there among the seeds."

"Ok, you two--add some colour," Jessica said, folding her arms across her chest. "Make the stars look the way they'd be to the human eye and highlight any sort of nebulosities, dust clouds or spatial phenomena--as if seen through a telescope or in an artist's rendition."

Slowly the sphere began to fill with swirling colours and gained depth; it reminded Laura of the night sky when she was a little girl and would sit with her father on the hill behind their house while he pointed out all the stars and constellations.

"We're here," Beth said, highlighting an area on the perimeter and rotating the sphere so that Laura could look into it from that perspective. 

Laura studied the star formations again; a small, wispy sphere caught her attention. Without thinking, she reached into the illusion and cupped the sphere in her palm. "Here," she said hoarsely, watching with a sense of unreality as her vision came to pass. "This is the pomegranate."

Withdrawing her hand, she watched as the "pomegranate" swelled to fill the entire globe. At the heart was a white, diamond-hard star next to a small cluster of red stars. A few other stars sparkled in the background. Laura reached in again, unerringly, for a pair of blood-red stars that were very close together.

"They're here," she said. 

#

Samuel Anders walked down the corridor towards life station lost in thought. Kara was unusually subdued since her rescue. Unlike the last time she'd been captured by the Cylons--her imprisonment on New Caprica had left her bitter and self-destructive for weeks--this time there didn't seem to be any of that. And it worried him deeply. 

Kara in pain got angry and lashed out; _this_ Kara in pain was quiet ... too quiet. It was like there was an essential part of her missing. That fire and energy that had radiated from her, and attracted him like a moth to a flame, was gone from her eyes--from her soul. Gone was his cocksure Starbuck and while Starbuck was at the root of a lot of Kara's problems, Sam recognised that she was also a source of strength for his wife and he didn't want her to lose such an essential part of herself.

Sam thrust his hands deeper into his pockets and prayed that it was only a passing shock, and the anger and fire was just beneath the surface waiting to lash out. Kara angry--that he knew how to handle. At least, he thought ruefully, Lee seemed intent on keeping his word and keeping his distance. That the other young man had made the first overture towards him with an apology for trying to come between him and Kara had surprised the hell out of Sam. And he was still suspicious of the younger Adama's motives for this gesture and whether or not it was genuine, but he'd decided he would accept it at face value for now and focus on his marriage. Truth be told, he'd known within five minutes of meeting Lee Adama that Kara had a lot of complicated feelings for him and vice-versa. Normally, Sam didn't do complicated--all his relationships had always been uncomplicated and straightforward with both he and his partner knowing exactly what was being offered. But Kara had drawn him in against his better judgement and he loved her. It was as simple as that.

A flash of red hair in front of him triggered a smile for that uncomplicated period of his life. Jean. He and Jean Barolay had been lovers after her divorce five years ago, and even after they'd stopped frakking, he'd still managed to keep her as a good friend. She was such a good friend that she had become one of Kara's regular visitors and he was grateful for that. Not many women would go out of their way to stay friends with an ex-lover--muchless become friends with his wife.

Sam's smile melted; he was about to call out to her when, instead of heading to the section of life station Kara occupied, Jean turned sharply to the left and down the aisle towards another section. Something in her posture immediately set the hair on the back of his neck on end and caused him to race after her.

She was just ducking into an isolation tent when he caught sight of her again; immediately he knew who ... what the small figure on the bed was.

"Jean!"

She froze; eloquent back to him, screaming. Unlike Kara, Jean's way of dealing with pain was silence.

"Leave Sam," she replied; her voice was flat ... dead. "This doesn't concern you."

"If it concerns you, it concerns me, Jean," he said quietly as he walked towards her. "We Bucks have to stick together."

She turned to face him. There was a gun in her hand. He stopped; it wasn't pointed at him, but this was Jean, and she had cobra-like reflexes he'd come to depend on ... on and off the pyramid court. 

Her face was cold, lifeless. "Not this time, Sam. Not this time."

It had taken three months after the bombs fell on Caprica City for that expression to leave her face the last time, and even then, there was a gaping crater left behind that she filled with anger and vengeance and the need to kill every toaster she could.

"It won't bring them back."

"No."

"Don't do this," he pleaded. "You're not an assassin, Jean. You're not a murderer."

"Why not?" she flared; she brought the gun up to aim right between his eyes. "What's the _frakking_ difference? We've killed hundreds of them! Thousands! What the frak is _one_ more?"

"Because there's someone who loves her." He saw Cottle and a marine out of the corner of his eye and prayed that they would allow him to talk her down. "Because there are three people who risked everything to save her--the _President_ may have given her life to save this child, Jean." A shadow ghosted across her face and the gun lowered ever so slightly. "If there is one Cylon you can say is truly innocent, Hera is that one. Are you willing to kill an innocent? Could you live with yourself if you did?"

"I'm not living now!" she cried. "I've been dead for three and a half years, Sam."

"I know," he whispered remembering the laughter and joy he'd shared with her and her boys; teaching her seven-year-old, Toby, to play pyramid ... carrying four-year-old Jonas on his shoulders so he could put the ball in the goal. He walked over to her and folded her into his embrace. Sam felt the gun press into his back as she laid her head against his chest. He stroked her hair as her hot tears soaked through his shirt. 

"But killing this child won't bring them back, Jean. Nothing will bring them back."

#


	20. Chapter 20

"Hi."

Kara looked up and met Lee Adama's gaze. She smiled. "Hi yourself," she replied. This had only been the second time he'd been to visit her since her return, but strangely, she understood it. She would be leaving life station within the hour, so it was the last time he'd have a chance to speak to her here in the odd privacy it provided. 

The last ten days with Sam had crystallised a lot of things for her; Samuel Anders was a good man, and she believed in the sacredness of marriage and the sanctity of it before the Gods. Lee had once offered it to her along with his love, but she'd been too afraid to take his offering and had thrown it back in his face in the worse possible way. She'd married Sam for all the wrong reasons, but she realised now that whatever else was between her and Lee, she loved Sam. And she was grateful that Lee had allowed her the space to work things out with her husband.

"So I hear that Cottle is kicking you out of here soon," he said taking the seat by her bed.

"Yeah."

"That's good."

"Yeah."

The silence stretched out between them; there were so many things Kara wanted to say, but it was like all her courage had suddenly fled. _Where the frak is Starbuck when I need her_ , she wondered grimly and then stopped that train of thought in its tracks. Hiding behind Starbuck's tendancy to go out with all guns blazing and damn the consequences was what got her into trouble in the first place. No, if they were going to work anything out, it had to be between Lee and Kara, not Starbuck and Apollo. And she had to be honest with him.

"You know, we're going to have to work on those verbal communication skills everyone is always touting," he said smiling at her.

She giggled. "Yeah." She held his gaze for a moment. "I'm sorry, Lee," she said softly. "I do love you, but I love Sam also and I married him--for better or worse, I married him in the eyes of the Gods. He deserves a lot better than me, than what I've given him and this marriage so far. I have to do my best to make this marriage work, and to do that I have to make an honest try."

"I know," he replied. "I'm sorry too, Kara, but I do understand and I respect that." He cupped her chin gently. "And I do love you too--I think I have for a long time. So long in fact, I think eventually I fell in love with the idea of loving you as much as I did you, if that makes any sense at all," he said smiling sadly. Kara nodded, eyes brimming and throat tight. "Anyway, I petitioned Dee before a priest for a divorce; it was finalised two days ago."

"Oh Lee," she whispered as the enormity of it hit her; by doing so, Lee had taken all the sin for the divorce upon himself, leaving Dee free and without the stain upon her soul.

"It was the right thing to do," Lee continued quietly, "the only thing to do. I married her to spite you; I like her very much and I respect her, but don't love her. I married her because I was hurt and angry--she didn't deserve that, Kara. No one deserves that. She loved me honestly and I used her badly. I couldn't keep doing that and live with myself anymore."

"How did she take it?" Kara asked, trying not to feel guilty and failing miserably.

He eyed her ruefully. "Well, she's still talking to me," he said. "I'll take that as a good sign. Other than that, I really couldn't say. I just hope that eventually she'll be able to look at me without hating me."

"I don't think she hates you."

"I can hope," Lee replied tiredly. "Anyway, I'd better get going before your very estimable husband loses patience with my ass."

Kara laughed as he leaned in to kiss her cheek. As he turned to leave, she called after him, "And such a cute ass it is too, Apollo."

He grinned and saluted her. "Just wait till I get _your_ ass back in the cockpit, Starbuck! You are so going down on it!"

Kara laid there for a long time after Lee left, just letting her thoughts drift on all the might-have-beens in her life; times when she could have had the brass ring if only she'd had the courage to reach for it. All at once, she knew that Lee would always be her greatest regret, but Starbuck and Apollo would still be friends.

Sam's gentle voice pulled her from her introspection. "Hey, you ready to get out of here?"

She turned to him and smiled. "Yeah."

#

"I know what you want, Admiral," the woman said looking at Adama with those strangely piercing eyes. Zarek's people had found her in a squalid little compartment, and she wouldn't leave until promised that she would be repaid with a bottle of precious Chamalla. Now Saul Tigh watched her as she snatched the bottle out of Cottle's hand; it reminded him of some wild, feral thing.

"I am _not_ an animal, Colonel Tigh," Dodona Selloi said, turning those eyes on him--chilling him to the bone. She lifted her chin with a defiant dignity despite the dirt and grime. "I simply miscalculated how much I would lose on New Caprica. And anyway, you owe me," she said looking significantly at Cottle. "You wouldn't have been able to wake the Goddess if I hadn't given you those first Chamalla plants when you came looking to treat her disease. It's only fair now."

Cottle nodded a bow to her, uncharacteristically defferential in his expression.

"Admiral Adama, you have questions," she said. "Allow me the kindness of your hospitality for an hour, then you may return and ask all the questions you wish."

For a moment, Bill looked like he might object, but then he seemed to gather himself up. "Of course, Oracle Selloi," he said. "I'll see you in an hour then."

As they filed out, Tigh heard her parting shot. "And leave the entourage behind when you return."

"That went well," Zarek said with an amused smirk as the marine guard closed the door. "So she believes Laura Roslin is a goddess--I wonder which one? Curious, isn't it--most religious people in the fleet associate her with Pythia."

Adama's lips thinned as he regarded Zarek, but he said nothing; Saul got the feeling that Bill knew the answer to Zarek's question.

"Well, we can't keep up this charade, Admiral," Zarek continued. "It's been ten days; the press is frothing at the collective mouth and the Quorum is threating to come over here in defiance of your orders. The planet and our replenished food supplies may have distracted them for a couple of days, but tensions are rising in the fleet again and the rumours are flying faster than a raider on a suicide run--the people need to see the President, Adama. Then there's the fact that Roslin told you to leave this place after six days; there are a lot of places in this system that a couple of Cylon raiders could hide without us ever knowing that they were there. Believe me, I don't want to leave her behind any more than you do, but we need to move out soon."

"This is where I bow out," Cottle said and headed down the corridor to the life station.

"I know," Bill said to Zarek; the exhaustion in his voice and in his eyes evident. "Call for a press conference to take place on board _Galactica_ in two and a half hours."

The former terrorist did a double-take in surprise at Adama's easy capitulation; in fact, Saul was pretty surprised himself. Zarek studied his nemesis closely for a moment, and then made a very formal bow to him, his right hand over his heart. 

"Understood, Admiral Adama," he said before turning away. He nodded to Tigh as he passed. "Colonel."

Tigh watched him go, before turning his attention back to Adama. "Bill?" he said in concern.

"He's right, Saul," Adama replied. "We can't stay here for much longer and we can't leave Laura behind without some explanation to the people."

#

Cottle watched Karl and Sharon Agathon enter life station behind Lieutenant Burrell. Two marines stationed themselves at the entrance. 

"You wanted to see them, doctor?" Burrell said.

"I'll take it from here," Cottle said, attempting to usher the two young people towards his office.

"These are _my_ prisoners, sir," the marine commander protested.

"And they're in my _frakking_ life station, Lieutenant," the old doctor said sarcastically, "and I would like to speak to them alone. If you don't like it, take it up with the Admiral."

Gesturing to them to follow him, they left an indecisive Burrell standing in the middle of the room.

"Thank you," Sharon said quietly as she entered Cottle's office. 

He grunted a wordless reply. "You two are in a pretty pickle," he said closing the door and walking over to them. "And you've left the Admiral in the untenable position of having to explain to the people what's happened to Roslin. His fitness for leadership, his ability to judge character ... his entire ability to command this fleet will be called into question. It will devastate him professionally and personally--and that's the last thing this fleet needs right now."

"Don't you think we know that?" Agathon ground out resentfully.

"No, I don't think you do," Cottle replied bluntly, "not really--you wouldn't be here right now if you'd _ever_ stopped to give one thought to everything the Admiral had invested in you. But it's only ever been about you two, hasn't it? What you wanted, what you needed--your love, your baby ... your chance to prove yourselves! Hey look at us," he drawled nastily, "our love has conquered all ... all the anger, all the mistrust--all the _frakking_ hatred! We can forgive the Cylons for all the terrible things they've done and co-exist with them in love. It's always been about your love--the shining example of what could be--hasn't it! Did you really think that it would work? Did you really think there would be no consequences from your perfect _love_ besides your perfect life with your perfect little hybrid baby?"

The young man invaded Cottle's space radiating belligerence. "Is there a point to all this?"

"Helo," Sharon whispered grabbing his arm to stop his advance.

"Listen to your wife, Mr. Agathon," Cottle said lighting up a cigarette and taking a deep pull. He exhaled a cloud of pungent smoke. "They say that the female of the species is infinitely smarter than the male--good to see it holds for Cylons as well. My point, Mr. Agathon, is what world did you think you were living in? In what world did you think you were going to live all happy and cozy and _safe_ with your _Cylon_ wife and baby after the Cylons slaughtered over 20 billion people from orbit? And then they came to New Caprica and did the same thing--only this time up-close and personal?"

"Sharon's done--"

"Yeah," Cottle drawled. "Sharon's done a lot for this fleet." He laughed at the angry, desperate look on Agathon's face. "Risked her life over and over for this fleet; you think that really matters here? One good Cylon out of how many--chasing us across the frakking universe intent on killing what's left of us or allowing us to lead them to the Thirteenth Tribe and wipe out all humans in one fell swoop?"

Cottle puffed on his cigarette as the silence stretched out between them. The sudden knock on the door was jarring even though he expected it. "Just in time," he muttered as he moved to open the door.

"What is this about?" the young man demanded. Ishay entered with the little girl in her arms.

Sharon gave a little cry and Karl Agathon stopped dead in his tracks, mouth still open. "This is about her," Cottle said nodding to Ishay, who gently handed the child to a visibly trembling Sharon. "Hera Number Two--you guys are going to have to come up with a better name--is strong enough to leave life station now, but there's no safe place for her in this fleet except in _Galactica's_ brig with you two."

Sharon was crying openly now as she stared at the little girl. Ishay nodded to Cottle and left quickly. Agathon drew his wife into his protective embrace. Tears coursed down the young man's face as the child reached out and traced the contours of Sharon's face, her blank expression slowly becoming more inquisitive.

"You can take her with you," Cottle said quietly, "I'll give you enough medication for the next month to ensure proper renal functioning and some vitamins. She isn't Hera, but perhaps that's just as well--"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Agathon's temper flared again.

"For _frak's_ sake, man," Cottle said in annoyance. "That child is going to grow up in a _frakking_ cage, a target for every man or woman in this fleet who lost a child in the holocaust or since--just like Hera would have if Roslin and _I_ hadn't made the decision to hide her. I know that you're determined to cast the President as the evil, heartless monster--" 

"She had no right to do that to us--" 

"Helo--stop!" Sharon cried, but Cottle's fury was too far gone.

"She had every right, you selfish _motherfrakker_!" Cottle shouted back. "There's already been one attempt on this child's life!" Sharon cried out inarticulately, hugging the little girl tighter to her chest. "It was never about you and Sharon--get that through your thick skull. It was about your _daughter_ and Roslin was the only one to give any thought about your daughter's _right_ not to be caged like an animal or to be hunted--or to be slaughtered for being part Cylon ... like all the billions of children in the Colonies were slaughtered for being human! Slaughtered like my four innocent grandchildren were slaughtered for no other crime than being born human!" Agathon gaped at the old man in horror. 

"Do you know how old the youngest was? One month old--she was barely one month old when she was incinerated alive! I only saw her once and she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen--" His voice broke and he fought to regain his equanimity. Taking a couple of rapid pulls on his cigarette, he said, "But then again, all my grandbabies were the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. I may have been a shit of a father, but I was one hell of a grandpa. So take your baby and get the _frak_ out of my sight."

#


	21. Chapter 21

_"Do you know how I met Laura Roslin?"_ Wallace Grey asked. Bill's head snapped up from staring at the recorder in the palm of his hand after Tigh and Zarek had left.

He studied the other man carefully before answering, _"No, I assumed you met working for Adar."_

Grey smiled thinly. _"Yeah, you do seem to make a lot of assumptions where Laura is concerned,"_ he said. Bill felt his hackles rise at the condemnation implicit in the other man's tones. _"No, I was the one who actually dragged her into politics--introduced her to Adar. She was my oldest daughter's teacher when she started middle school. That's how I came to know Laura Roslin; she was the teacher of the most tomboyish hell-raiser you ever did meet. My fault, I'm afraid--kids pick up on the damnedest things and growing up my daughter picked up on the fact that I longed for a son. So in that wonderful, logical way kids' minds often work, Danica thought that I wished she was a boy and that if she acted like a boy, I would perhaps work less, play with her more, cuddle her more--love her more. There is no way to explain to a child about adult ambitions of being a political heavyweight ... or a Viper pilot--is there?"_ Grey asked giving Adama a significant look.

 _"No there isn't,"_ Bill admitted, thinking about all the things he'd missed in his sons' lives when they were growing up, and how he'd shaped them even with his absence. Both Lee and Zak had gone into the military to become Viper pilots just like him; Zak hadn't survived the training.

 _"So my daughter, little over-achiever that she was, went about determined to out-boy all the boys,"_ Grey continued and Bill could see that he was in his way proud of his little girl's single-mindedness. _"In the process Danica became Dani, who was rather an awful bully. I saw it as nothing but a little high spirits in a strong, active child; her teacher saw it for what it was--a personality problem that if left unchecked could potentially become a serious personality disorder. In the months following the birth of my first son, my daughter took to beating up any boy she could find. Big or small, she'd start a fight given the slightest provocation. So we started getting calls from her annoying teacher and I kept promising I would deal with it. This went on for about a month. Then I got a call at work--I'd asked that the school contact me there and not my wife because she'd had a difficult pregnancy and enough to cope with the problems of caring for a baby that had been two months premature and had breathing difficulties._

_"Anyway, Dani was sent to the principal's office for beating up a little boy with no provocation at all--near as anyone could tell, she simply went out to the schoolyard at playtime and proceeded to beat the shit out of the first boy she came across. Laura demanded that I come down to the school immediately for a conference--I think I laughed at her. Believe me, not a good idea if you want to keep breathing through your nose. So once again I promised her that I'd take care of it, but there was no way I could drop everything for a conference with her ... I had an important presentation to make to the City Council in a few hours, but I'd pencil Ms Roslin in for an hour the following week and my secretary would call her with the time and date."_

Grey stopped and laughed ruefully, his eyes unfocused as he looked into the past; Bill wondered if the other man even remembered he was still in the room. 

_"An hour later, as I was getting ready for my meeting, there was a knock on my office door, and thinking it was one of my co-presenters, I opened it and blam! Next thing I know, I'm flat on my back, blood gushing from my nose and looking up at one furious red-head in impeccable maternity clothes, calmly explaining that's how my daughter had sucker-punched the boy before jumping on him while he was down and clobbering the crap out of him."_

Bill exploded with incredulous laughter. _"She hit you?"_ he wheezed when he could speak again.

Grey chuckled nostalgically. _"Broke my nose and gave me a shiner as a souvenir for the next couple of days. She has a mean right hook."_

 _"I knew that she acquired her love for boxing from her father,"_ Bill said fondly. _"But I didn't know that she could fight."_

 _"She can't, not formally, but she learned to throw a punch or two,"_ he replied. _"Her father used to train amateur boxers for the Kobol Games--know Kid Caprica and Michael "the Mauler" Stutko?"_ Bill nodded, impressed and a little angry--not to mention jealous--that she hadn't talked to him about her father's connection to boxing other than she loved it when he took her to the fights. _"They were two of his kids before they went pro. The Mauler was her father's last gold medalist before he died in a car accident along with her two older sisters when Laura was fourteen."_

Bill felt the blood drain from his face. _"I hadn't realised that she was quite so young when they died,"_ he said hoarsely.

 _"It's one of the things she doesn't talk about,"_ Grey replied. _"I didn't learn about it until nearly five years after we first met. My wife, Jenna, and I were out with her and one of those blind dates Jenn was always setting her up with--some prick of a doctor, if I remember correctly--when the Mauler walked into the restaurant. The blowhard immediately started waving him over and going on about how they were close, personal friends because he'd once met the Mauler through his accountant's wife's hairdresser's third-cousin-twice-removed._

_"All of a sudden, this pair of big beefy arms plucks Laura out of her seat and bellows, "Sparks! My Gods, Sparks, I thought that was you!" And Laura kisses him and giggles, "Hey Mickey, it's been a long time." Can you imagine anyone calling "the Mauler" Mickey to his face--even though he was just an aging sports reporter by then?"_

_"I can't imagine anyone--even the Mauler--calling her "Sparks" to her face,"_ Bill said laughing.

Grey chortled at the memory. _"It was short for "Sparkplug"--apparently all her father's boxers called her that; she was their unofficial mascot,"_ he replied. _"Anyway, by this time, everyone in the restaurant is looking at them in amusement and you can see that he's genuinely happy to see her. So he pulls up a chair, plops himself down between her and her date and proceeds to reminisce about old times with her and her dad at the gym, all the while flirting shamelessly with her. I don't think either of them even noticed when her date left in a huff after being ignored for an hour._

_"But I remember this giant of a man saying, rather wistfully, that if he'd known what a woman his "skinny, scrawny little Sparks" would grow up to be, he might have been tempted to wait for her. But he was happily married to his third wife for more than fifteen years--the first two marriages having lasted less than a year each--and he had three great kids so he couldn't complain. Then he whips out his wallet with about a hundred pictures and proceeds to tell her all about them, and eventually he asks if she had any kids ... and she takes out her wallet, shows him a photo of the sweetest little girl and tells him all about Polly."_

_"Polly?"_ William Adama gasped and stared at the other man in absolute shock. Then something Grey had said earlier clicked to the front of his mind. _"She was wearing maternity clothes when you met,"_ he husked. _"Laura was_ pregnant _?"_

 _"Eight months,"_ Grey replied. _"The reason she couldn't wait for me to pencil her in the next week was because she was going on maternity leave at the end of that week and she was concerned enough about my daughter ... cared enough about Danica to make sure she got the help she needed and that a stupid, workaholic father paid attention to his little girl's cry for help."_

 _"And Polly?"_ Bill croaked. _"My Gods, don't tell me Laura lost her too in the holocaust--"_

 _"No,"_ Grey said softly, his face at once full of sorrow. _"No, Polly died a long time ago--nearly twenty-one years ago in fact."_

 _"How ..."_ Adama cleared his throat. _"How did she die?"_

_"Over a year after our altercation in my office, my wife and I tracked Laura down--got her address from a mutual acquaintance. He had seen her briefly one day and was afraid she wasn't well. Anyway, Jenn and I went to thank her; Danica was doing extremely well--actually started to like being a girl again and we wanted to show our appreciation. I almost didn't recognise her," he said softly. "Instead of the fierce, pugilistic Amazon I'd met that day in my office, we found a thin, harried single mother at the end of her rope, and who had just been told that her beautiful baby girl would die of a horrible disease ... that she probably wouldn't live past her fifth birthday and certainly woudn't live to see her tenth."_

Bill felt his heart break as he tried to imagine Laura's devastation and knew that he couldn't--not really. 

_"I've always been glad that we just gave in to impulse and went to see her without calling first,"_ Grey continued. _"We were actually on our way to the Halcyon Shores for a couple days rest. We'd left the kids behind with my parents and since Laura's place was on the way, we decided to stop in. If we'd given her any warning, I'm quite sure we would have found a calm, collected, gracious hostess who would have plied us with tea and pastries, thanked us very nicely and sent us on our way none the wiser. Instead, she answered the door with her face still red and puffy from crying because Polly, who had started pulling herself up to walk while holding on to the furniture, had fallen down with a bout of convulsions earlier that day. Then we showed up at her door--two perfect strangers who just wanted to say thank you ... well, she fell apart. Anyway, Jenn took over and all of a sudden, we were in her house and my wife is on the couch holding her while she simply bawled her eyes out, and me--I'm standing there like an idiot with no clue about what's going on or how to help._

 _"Eventually, Jenn had me go make some tea. Then we just stayed and talked with her for hours,"_ he said quietly. _"You wouldn't believe all the research she'd done into Polly's condition--then Jenn packed her and Polly into our car and we took them to the sea shore with us."_

 _"What condition did Polly have?"_ Bill asked hoarsely.

_"A rare degenerative neurological disease called infantile leukodystrophy. I'm sure Laura could tell you all the proper scientific names, but it's a horrible, insidious condition that destroys the white matter of the brain and nervous system--the insulating sheaths around the nerves break down because of a metabolic deficiency, leading to muscle weakness and degeneration, muscle rigidity, convulsions, blindness and paralysis before progressing to a coma and finally death. Back then, there was no cure, not even a treatment, but in recent years, researchers have found that if you catch it early enough and give the child a bone marrow transplant, you can slow the progression of the disease for a few years. Polly had seemed fine when she was born, but all too soon, the disease robbed her of all those wonderful little gains she made during the first year of her life._

_"Watching that little girl die day by day, breath by precious breath is one of the hardest things I've ever done,"_ Wallace Grey whispered. _"And I thanked the Gods every night--and I know that my wife did too--that the worst Brandon had had to suffer through, despite his premature birth, was a childhood plagued with asthma and thankfully mild vision problems, probably due to the high oxygen concentrations while he was in the incubator, but they were easily corrected with glasses."_

_"You watched her die?"_

_"After that first day, do you think we could just walk away from her and Polly?"_ Grey asked, anger creeping into his voice. _"Laura had no family left; her father and sisters had been dead for years and her mother died of cancer over two years before Polly was born. Jenna and I had our children, our parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, dozens of cousins--even Jenna's grandparents on her mother's side were still alive. We had a real embarrassment of riches when it came to family. I think Laura had an aunt in a temple somewhere on Gemenon, but that was it. So she became Aunt Laura to Dani and Brandon, and later, godmother to our second son, James, and Polly gained a pair of honourary siblings who would do anything for her. But Polly wasn't the only one who gained from the relationship. In her short life she taught my son to be a kind, gentle, caring boy and she taught Danica all those very grown-up concepts of compassion, love, responsibility and even mortality."_

Bill didn't try to hide the tears that flowed freely down his face. Grey pulled his wallet from his jacket inside pocket, opened it and took two well-worn pictures from it. He slid them across Bill's desk. 

_"They're the only ones I have left of Polly,"_ he said as Bill caught sight of the angelic little face framed in a halo of bright copper hair that shone in the sunshine. She was on a beach just at the water's edge, taking a tottering step on chubby little legs towards Laura, who knelt with arms outstretched to receive her, and there was an expression of unadulterated glee on the little girl's face one only found in small children.

 _"That one was taken that first time on the Halcyon Shores,"_ Grey said, _"before the degeneration really set in. Polly took her first independent steps that day. And soon after that, it all started to go, bit by bit, day by day. The second one--"_ He indicated to the picture of Laura with a healthy tow-headed toddler and a visibly wasted Polly on her lap; the difference between the two children was like night and day. Seated next to Laura was a beautiful girl in her early teens, just on the cusp of womanhood, with long blonde hair and storm-grey eyes. Polly's lovely green eyes were closed and there was no life or animation on her face that should have been there even in sleep. _"That picture was taken just before Polly entered the hospital for the last time. She was blind and paralysed by that time and had to be fed using a special apparatus. A few days after that picture, she slipped into a coma and never woke up. I found out later from Jenn that Laura had put a "do not resuscitate" order in her file. I don't know if I could have done that."_

 _"I don't know if I could have done it either,"_ Bill whispered.

 _"And that's why you can be sure that Laura will always do what's in the best interest of a child, Admiral,"_ Grey said emphatically as he held Bill's gaze. _"Was it a cruel and inhuman thing to do to the parents? Undoubtedly. And if she'd done that with any of my babies, I'd probably hate her as much as the Agathons do, but you and I both know that child would have been dead or in Cylon hands before her first month was out. Was it her choice to make? That is a question only you can answer for yourself, Adama, but don't you ever think that Laura did it lightly or maliciously or because she doesn't know what it's like to lose a child. It's precisely because she lost a child that she would go to such extraordinary lengths to protect any child, even a half-Cylon child that posed an intolerable risk to this fleet."_

The silence between them was a living thing. As Grey reached for the pictures again, Bill asked, _"May I keep them for a couple of days?"_ The other man looked at him in surprise. _"I'd like to make copies. Don't worry, I'll be very discrete."_

After a long moment, Grey nodded. _"Laura had some pictures with her at the beginning of the exodus, but I haven't seen them since she got back from New Caprica,"_ he said. _"And I haven't wanted to ask. There are certain things not even I can just bring up with her; Polly is one of them--her father and sisters are others. I figured that if she needed copies of my pictures, she would ask."_

_"How will Laura feel about you telling me about Polly?"_

The other man's face fell. _"Probably not very happy,"_ he replied. _"I've broken her confidence and that's not something she will forgive easily. But Polly is someone you needed to know about, Admiral, and someone Laura would never speak about. Her full name was Hippolyte Boudica Roslin, but that was far too long a name for such a tiny little girl, so she was Polly from day one."_

#


	22. Chapter 22

_Hippolyte Boudica Roslin. Polly._

Bill sighed as he walked back to Dodona Selloi's quarters; he hadn't been able to stop thinking of Laura's daughter since Grey told him about her. She crept into his thoughts at the most unexpected moments. He remembered the utter joy on Laura's face as her daughter took her first faltering steps towards her that bright summer day on the beach at Halcyon Shores, and the carefully concealed sorrow in the second picture that was so heartbreakingly palpable in her eyes as she held her dying baby. 

Perhaps Grey couldn't bring up Polly with Laura, but he hoped to be able to.

The hatch was open when he arrived. He nodded to the marines and stepped inside.

"Close the door," Selloi said.

Adama pulled the hatch closed behind him and turned to face the woman. _She's certainly cleaned up well_ , was his first thought. Though no one would ever call the Oracle a beautiful woman, Bill found her long, thin face handsome in an unconventional way and oddly attractive. _It's the eyes_ , he decided. Intense and piercing, they shifted chameleon-like between dark brown and hazel--now a soft caramel ... a moment later almost green. Freed from its dirty turban, her shoulder-length brown hair curled about her face, and she wore a crisp, white temple robe over a flowing, colourfully-patterned pantsuit.

"Please, sit down, Admiral." Bill lowered himself into the nearest of the two chairs in the room. "Thank you for your hospitality," she said sitting down across from him. She stretched out her long legs and allowed her posture to relax. "You don't know how good it is to be clean again," she said. "But we're not here to discuss me. You have questions, so ask away."

"Will she return?" The question was out of his mouth before he realised it.

"Yes." 

"When?"

Selloi laughed. "When she gets here, Admiral--and no, I'm not trying to be facetious," she said forestalling his protest. "It's not like a clock or metronome comes with this _frakking_ talent. All I can tell you is that she will be here when she said she would come; all you have to do is trust yourself--trust your instincts, you _will_ find her again."

"The only problem is, that was four days ago." For the first time, the Oracle seemed startled--discomfited.

"That can't be," she said. "I felt her surety. You misinterpreted her directions. She's with the Angels of the Light and she _will_ come."

Bill scowled at her. "It's pretty _frakking_ hard to misinterpret "if the angels don't come in six days then leave this place and don't look back"," he growled.

"Then I don't know what to say, Admiral," she replied after a few moments of silence.

"Laura said that there were so many choices that it was hard to know the right ones to choose--could she have made the wrong choice somewhere?" Bill heard the desperation seeping into his voice and hated it. "If so, perhaps we can--"

"No." There was a grim finality in her tone that crushed his faint hope. "There is no going back, Admiral Adama. If you go back, you will unravel the entire tapestry that has been woven, and you will bring only destruction to Thirteen Tribes of Kobol." Bill gasped at the implications of her statement--and he was at once filled with hope and with despair. 

"Only two people will be able to turn back; one has already chosen, but it is not yet time for the other to make that choice--it may never be time. All I can say is that I felt the Goddess' surety and I felt the changes she made as they rippled out from the source--and they _felt_ right. If there has been a mis-choice, I haven't the talent to see where it lies. Perhaps in a day, a week ... a year, I would be able to discern the truth, but even that is doubtful, for I have never been a farseer like her. Sometimes, by the time I see something, the event is already upon me."

"Why do you call her the Goddess?" he asked curiously.

"Why do you call her Laura Roslin, President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol?" she countered. "It is what she is--or rather, it is what she is _here_ and _now_. Why do they call you Zeus?" she asked, gesturing expansively.

"Certainly not because I'm the incarnation of the King of the Gods," he snorted.

She laughed. "You'd be surprised, Admiral, you'd be surprised; for what are we if not thoughts expressed? There is a bit of the Gods incarnate in everyone--some of us more than others. It's all very ... democratic."

Bill found that he could say nothing to that. After a moment, he asked, "Why Athena?"

"You tell me," she replied. "Why anything in this frakked-up universe? I was never good with the scriptures, nor can I say that I've ever really believed in the Gods."

He eyed her sceptically. "That's a strange thing for an Oracle to admit."

"Is it now?" she chuckled. "Tell me, if the war hadn't happened, would you have ever really believed in the Lords of Kobol?"

"No," he admitted honestly.

"And I'd say that was a strange thing for a battlestar commander to admit," she replied. "I'm an Oracle, Admiral Adama, not a _frakking_ priest. Entering the Temple of Zeus and becoming an Oracle simply offered me a way to live with myself."

They sat in silence regarding each other for a few moments before she spoke again. "It's time for us to go," she said rising and smoothing out her clothing. "Let's get you and the others ready to face that pack of wolves you've assembled."

"You're going to the press conference?" He didn't even bother to ask how she knew about that.

She gave him a strange smile and giggled softly. "Yes, I think it best that I be there." As he rose and moved towards the hatch, she caught his arm in a surprisingly strong grip and turned him to look directly into his eyes; her piercing gaze seemed to bore directly into his soul. "Where the Agathons are concerned, trust yourself. Where Laura is concerned, trust her, and where William is concerned, he must teach her to trust him by trusting her." She laughed again, light and mocking. "Because if there's one thing you have in common with your Madam President, Admiral Adama, it's your inability to truly trust each other--one of you has to start somewhere before you tear each other apart and I believe you know where to start."

"Yes," he replied hoarsely.

"Good. Good."

#

If there was one thing Bill Adama hated, it was press conferences; he didn't know how Laura managed to give the _frakking_ things--sometimes two, three times in a week--and make it look easy. He was at the podium when Quorum and the press filed in, Saul Tigh on one side, Tom Zarek on the other. Each person's surprise was palpable as they caught sight of those assembled behind him; Tory Foster, Wallace Grey, Dodona Selloi, Kara in her wheelchair with Anders beside her, and Karl Agathon with Sharon holding the Cylon clone of their child.

"Thank you all for coming." Bill's voice rumbled though the room.

"Admiral Adama," Marshall Bagot said, jumping in immediately. "What is the meaning of this? Where is the President?"

"If you will please sit down, Mr. Bagot, we will get on with this briefing." The officious leader from Virgon took his seat uneasily. Bill took a deep breath and began. "As of fifteen minutes ago, I have officially changed the status of President Laura Roslin on the Fleet's Population List to Missing In Action."

Holding himself rigidly, Bill waited for the roar of shock and the cacophony of voices shouting questions from all sides to settle back down to an acceptable level.

"Twelve days ago, on the last day of the Open Quorum, Ms Roslin left _Rising Star_ with Captain Karl Agathon and Lieutenant Sharon Agathon on a clandestine mission to the Cylons," Bill said; this time utter silence greeted his words as if suddenly the entire room had become a vacuum. "The purpose of this mission was to rescue Captain Kara Thrace and the Agathon's child, Hera. To that end, the mission was successful, but Ms Roslin elected to remain behind to cover their escape."

"That's impossible!" Sarah Porter, the representative from Gemenon, exploded. "Why would she go on a mission with these two--the enmity between them is well known. They probably took her and left her there!"

"Yes!" Sharon shouted and Bill felt his heart lurch. From the beginning, he knew that this was always going to be a cluster-frak, but he prayed they would stay on-script. "We admit that the original idea was ours, but Ms Roslin knew how desperate we were to rescue our daughter and she came with us willingly--modified our plan to ensure its success."

"It wasn't that much of a success; you left her behind!" Bagot roared.

"That was never our intention," Karl Agathon said, clearly distraught. "She was simply supposed to pose as bait. She was in an environmental suit and had a grenade filled with a lethal toxin. All she was supposed to do was stand there until we got Kara and Hera safely on board and then she was supposed to come back to the Raptor. But she didn't--at the last minute she refused to come with us and she removed her helmet. She was afraid that the Cylons would try something with the airlock, but she knew that they wouldn't risk killing her."

"Why would the Cylons trade Starbuck and Hera for Ms Roslin in the first place?" asked James McManus, one of the more respected reporters in the fleet.

"Because _I_ convinced them that she was more valuable than Starbuck and Hera," Sharon replied in a low, choked voice. 

"The President knew that Captain Thrace would never tell them anything," Dodona Selloi said, coming forward and placing her hand on Sharon's shoulder. "Despite whatever they did to her, the Handmaid of Artemis would not break, but she also knew that the Cylons would be looking for a reason they couldn't break her because they couldn't accept their own fallibility or that the human spirit could withstand their tortures. The President knew that they would torture Starbuck to death and never get their answer." 

"So we gave them a reason they could accept," Sharon said. "I told them that Kara wasn't the key to finding Earth, Ms Roslin was. I made them believe that the President was the one who told Kara how to activate the Eye of Jupiter, just like she'd been the one to send Kara back to Caprica for the Arrow of Apollo." 

Again, the silence that reigned was as cold as space.

"Oracle Selloi," Playa Palacios, perhaps Roslin's staunchest supporter among the press, called out, "did you know what President Roslin was planning to do?"

"Yes," Selloi replied. "Yes I did. In the week before Ms Roslin left the fleet, she had been plagued with a series of visions--visions that showed her not only the importance of regaining Captain Thrace and Hera, but also an important step in finding the Angels of the Light, the Thirteenth Tribe and Earth."

"The Angels of the Light," Sarah Porter gasped; the highly religious Gemenese woman's face was alight with rapture. "She knew how to find the Servants of the Five?"

"Yes, Ms Porter," the Oracle replied. "She hoped that with their help she would escape the Cylons. President Roslin directed Admiral Adama to this place; she knew it would be a safe place for the fleet to rest and re-supply."

Bill cleared his throat. "She left a message for me, directing us to this supernova remnant, which we've called "Persephone's Pomegranate". In her message, she asked me to wait for her for six days, and if by that time she did not return with the Angels of the Light, the fleet should leave and not look back."

"But we've been here for ten days already," Playa said, realisation dawning on her face.

"And that is why I've changed her status to MIA," Bill replied quietly. " _Galactica_ will issue new jump co-ordinates to the fleet at eighteen hundred hours. The re-supply mission should be completed by fifteen hundred hours tomorrow. That is all."

"Admiral Adama! Admiral Adama!" called Sekou Hamilton, another reporter who, with Palacios and McManus, made up the trio of commentators known as the Colonial Gang. "Did President Roslin inform you of her plan?"

"No Mr. Hamilton, she did not," Bill said; he barked a harsh laugh. "But then again, she _is_ the President--it was her decision to make. As far as I know, only the Agathons and Oracle Selloi knew of this ... plan. For their dereliction of duty and going absent without leave, the Agathons will be sentenced to ninety days in the brig. As for the President, from what I can tell, she thoroughly understood the consequences."

A sudden blare of ship's klaxons punctuated his words. Saul Tigh covered the distance to the intra-ship phone in three long-legged strides. 

"XO, go!" He listened attentively for a few moments and then hung up. "Admiral, we're needed in CIC."

Tigh and Adama hurried out of the briefing room with the reporters yelling Tigh's name. 

#


	23. Chapter 23

Laura sat at the back of _Solange's_ bridge next to Jessica; it was bathed in cool blue light. Tony sat directly in front of her, immersed in the virtual world displayed in the large holographic sphere in front of him as the ship prepared for transition. To his right, the ship's executive officer, Emmanuela Rodrigues sat engrossed in her bridge master control board. 

The front wall was curved, transparent and looked down into a mist filled chamber, in which Alexandra and Elisabeth floated on inclined pallets facing each other. Each had two control boards--one at the level of each hand. According to Jessica, they were submerged in Solange's Core and each board was a Node, which gathered all necessary data from hyperspace; somewhere in there, little Hera also floated in her stasis chamber.

It was a fairly short hop to the fleet, so Alexandra would be the fully submerged pilot for this transition, while Elisabeth was kept just beneath the surface, ready to be submerged and take over if anything went wrong. At other times, both girls would submerge together, while another pilot acted as back-up.

The Nodes were the data gathering and information processing stations during their sojourn in hyperspace, but the processors were not the mechanical components of the Nodes--they were the minds of the pilots. Laura had asked if they did it with the help of cybernetic technology like the Cylons, but Solange's officers' obvious repugnance made it clear that they didn't. She wondered why they didn't go mad like the hybrids at the centre of Cylon ships, and reckoned that had to do with the fact that Solange was a living entity. 

_"The pilots are trained to do it,"_ Jessica told her, but would not explain how. The Node control boards, unlike most things Laura had come into contact with, were completely incomprehensible. Since the Angels used the same alphabet system that the Colonies did, all written information was clearly readable--if not always comprehensible. But the symbols used by the Nodes were like no other writing she'd ever seen. 

_"A private language made up by the Twins,"_ Jessica had explained, but did not elaborate why this should be necessary and Laura couldn't push.

The ship was now under silent running conditions; no unnecessary comm traffic or power emissions allowed. Everyone not at their duty stations was told to go to their preferred destinations and stay there for the duration. Besides the medbay, the children's nursery and the gardens, only two recreation rooms had limited power. The rest of the habitats and dormitories in the living ship were locked down tight and all power cut to them.

The sombre atmosphere on the ship as they prepared for transition was a sharp contrast to the night before. The party had started in the late afternoon in the large communal habitat area next to the dedicated gardens; it reminded Laura of the park deck on _Cloud One_ , the luxury liner that had been destroyed to signal the Cylons as to New Caprica's position. 

As Laura had watched _Solange's_ crew, there had been an atmosphere of desperate abandon in their revelry at the beginning. The children were allowed to stay up as long as they liked and were denied nothing, but cosseted and indulged in the sweets and treats of every kind that had been laid out. 

She had heard Jessica tell a couple of the young people not to spare the rations, that they would have to go on trust that they would be re-supplied soon. 

Watching Jessica's people as the tensions slowly bled out of them, and she could tell almost to the moment when each had stopped _pushing_ so hard to relax. She could tell when their too bright smiles and too animated talk had shifted and they became a group of people at a party enjoying themselves. Laura and Boomer had been supplied with new clothing; and if Laura had been pleasantly surprised at the light, lovely fabrics and styles that would have been rather sophisticated back in the Colonies, the clothing the youths favoured for the most part was a real eye-opener. 

Like their hairstyles, it ran riot, from tight, barely-there little outfits to elaborate, almost costume-like garb. Jessica and Emmanuela had laughingly explained that as long as it didn't interfere with their duties, with so much of their lives irretrievably lost, it was extremely important to allow them the freedom of personal expression and style.

Laura chuckled; Boomer had just become their latest mannequin. 

And what colourful peacocks they certainly were, she thought in amusement as the young Cylon walked past with two pilots, Helene "The Face" Lucas and Robert "Blade" Adoulu, who seemed to have taken her under their wing. Both girls were simply gorgeous. Boomer's long brown hair had been lopped off, somehow coloured snow-white and styled into a mass of unruly spikes. She wore a light, white slip of a dress with spaghetti straps, dotted with small, pale blue and yellow flowers. 

Helene--whose face certainly would still launch a thousand ships in this day and age--on the other hand, sported a more severe look. Her champagne-blonde locks were dyed space black and cut in a sharp, chic bob that emphasised her lovely cheekbone structure. She wore a long, fitted, black jacket over a diaphanous black skirt, which swirled about her ankles. However, the severity of her style was softened with the numerous silver bracelets and the crystal pendant she wore.

Laura had watched Jessica interact with them, taking their outrageousness in stride as the pounding music started and the young people started dancing, their gyrations so frankly sexual that they left her feeling almost prudish. A purple-haired boy with light brown skin caught the bald-headed girl he was dancing with about the waist, spun her around and drew her hips flush with his so that her bottom was firmly against his groin. Laura's eyes widened as the girl leaned back into him--resting her head on his shoulder as their hips swivelled sensuously in time with the music while they moved across the dance floor.

 _Vertical intercourse indeed_ , she thought, smiling at Tony's apt description of the young people's preferred style of dancing. Laura sat back to observe the dynamics of the relationships between the crew.

Elisabeth and Tony arrived with a toddler about three years old, who was obviously their son. The little boy immediately climbed off his mother's lap, abandoning her for a gaggle of his playmates. As _Solange's_ captain and pilot joined Laura, Jessica and Liam, she could sense their easy companionship and love. However, she had also felt barely controlled sense of apprehension, anticipation and a barrage of other emotions from the two of them that had left her baffled. 

As the music changed and more people began to dance, Tony helped Elisabeth move from her chair to the couch beside him. Laura felt a sudden calm as they focused on each other. Still making small talk, Tony simply sat with Elisabeth--her small body turned half into his and circled by his arm. Laura watched his small intimate touches draw the fear and tension out of Elisabeth and felt the undeniable circuit of their love, as each drank thirstily from the pool of emotions. Suddenly, there was a moment when she felt almost like she had intruded on a moment of lovemaking, as she became caught-up in a powerful flood of emotional release and Elisabeth angled her head up to kiss him. 

Laura looked away, suddenly feeling the need to give them some privacy. Yet no matter where she looked, with few exceptions, the interaction between _Solange's_ crew was far more intimate and public than anything she'd experienced among _Galactica's_ crew, even among the highly-sexed Viper pilots. Then she realised that what she was seeing wasn't so much about sex as it was about the long-term relationships and commitments among this small crew of a hundred-odd souls. Two beautiful boys danced past, caught up in heady, carnal kisses, even as their feet carried them in time with the music into the melee of bodies on the dance floor. 

_Definitely different_ , Laura thought now as the black-haired boy came onto the bridge and moved down to consult with Emmanuela at the master control board. If she remembered correctly, he had been introduced as Timothy "Mouse" Suzuki, though he reminded Laura more of a sleek, powerful black panther than a mouse. His green-haired partner from the night before had been one of her "nurses" in medbay, Michael "The Maestro" Bellini, brother to _Solange's_ captain, Tony Bellini. It seemed that call-signs here were not reserved strictly for pilots.

Laura smiled now as Tony looked up from the hologram and turned to her. "We'll be transiting in a minute," he said in a low voice as the entire window into Solange's Core, where Alexandra and Elisabeth floated, became a window into the vast unknowable domain of hyperspace. "Watch the viewer." He smiled at them and turned back to his console. "Bridge to all personnel--we're transiting now; love and comfort, everyone."

Laura found herself tuning out the incomprehensible conversation around her carried out in low voices around her. She marvelled as a gaping tear in the roiling thermonuclear fires of the sun appeared to fill the Core and they moved inexorably deeper into it. Suddenly she felt something slam against her chest and knew she was dying. 

Her mind exploded outwards, flying apart as the universe blossomed. 

She was the origin of everything and nothing; she was thought giving birth to matter and energy and the Gods. 

She heard the songs of all the galaxies as they flowed inexorably through her; lived infinite lives in the space of a thought. 

She felt voluptuous, pregnant with all the souls of all life and in that moment, she was Solange, ancient mother of stars and galaxies and universes ... for that moment, she was a mother again, holding one precious little soul in her arms ...

And then she inhaled.

As the bridge snapped back into focus, she heard Emmanuela's voice saying calmly, "Inertial compensators online," as her hands flew across her boards, monitoring everything constantly, and keeping up a soft running dialogue with the navigation and engineering master controllers, as well as with Liam in medbay, who monitored the condition of the pilots. 

Through the window of the viewer, the Twins seemed to float in the roiling energies of hyperspace. Only Alexandra's hands moving across her boards gave any indication that she was still alive, while Elisabeth was deathly still like some bizarre mannequin, fingers hovering rigidly above her boards, while her unconscious mind followed the data streaming through the Node and how Alexandra dealt with it. 

Laura turned her attention to hyperspace itself, as rendered by the viewer; to the violent swirling energies flowing past the Twins as they pushed through the currents of this interface between "normal space and God and poetry"--whatever that meant to them. 

Suddenly there were two large vortices of bearing down on them, deadly cyclones of energy and otherworldly plasma that could turn a ship into a mass of debris. They deftly swung out of the way at right angles to the vortices, hurtling towards the vast reaches of eternity.

#


	24. Chapter 24

"What the hell now?" Bill ground out as they raced from the briefing room to CIC.

"According to Gaeta, the stars have gone crazy," Tigh said.

_"What?"_

"Don't shoot the messenger; that's what he said," Tigh replied as they entered the Combat Information Centre. "Report!" he barked to the officer of the watch, Lieutenant Gaeta.

"Sir, all of a sudden, the star that this planet orbits has started to throw off solar flares and prominences on an unprecedented scale!" Gaeta reported with a definite edge of excitement in his voice.

"What's happening? I thought you said that these red dwarf stars were stable, Mr. Gaeta," Tigh said as Zarek, Grey, Tori, Selloi and Anders pushing Kara's wheelchair entered _Galactica's_ nerve centre.

"They are," Gaeta replied. "And as of five minutes ago, this star fitted the profile of a normal red dwarf star. These stars don't go nova--they simply live for a long time and then burn out. At least that has always been the prevailing school of thought, sir. This class of star may sometimes be intrinsically variable but there would have been indications long before this--this type of activity is not normal. This should _not_ be happening!"

"Recall the Raptors from the surface," Adama ordered, "and update the fleet on the new co-ordinates." As his officers busied themselves with his orders, he asked, "Who is in the sky?"

"I have Apollo, sir," Dualla said, eyes wide in disbelief. "He says--he thinks the star is giving birth, sir," she said incredulously.

 _"What?"_ Tigh exploded; at the moment it was like the universe had truly gone crazy.

"Put him through," Adama ordered in a surprisingly calm voice.

"Sir, it's incredible," Lee's voice crackled over the wireless; there was more static over the channel than usual, but the wonder in his voice was unmistakeable. 

" _Lee_ , what do you see?" Adama said impatiently.

"The solar flares are confined to one small area of the star, sir," his son replied. "As far as we can see, only that part of the star is bulging like a woman's pregnant belly--wait ... something's happening ... oh my Gods, something's emerging. It looks like--it looks like a tiny white star, Dad!" Tigh could hear the other pilots' excited chatter in the background. "It--I think it's headed straight for us. Gods the speed is incredible--it's like a meteor streaking across the sky."

Sudden delighted laughter rang out in the CIC and Tigh whipped around to regard the crazy woman people called an Oracle. "What the hell are you laughing at?" he demanded.

"The Admiral knows," she said still laughing.

Tigh brought his gaze back to friend's rapt face studying the icon speeding across the DRADIS display. "It's her, Saul," he said. "It's Laura." 

"And she's brought the Angels with her," Selloi said.

#

Lee watched as the incredible miniature "sun" sped across the blackness of space, growing larger as it got closer. Its corona flared and snapped, crackling with incredible energies. Then, bare kilometres from the fleet, it suddenly stopped all forward movement; it didn't decelerate, it simply stopped. No sooner did he form the words to report this--though he knew they must have seen it on DRADIS--than five even tinier "suns", each barely the size of a Raptor, burst forth from it and hovered in front of him.

And then, just when he thought he couldn't get any more surprised, part of the larger "sun's" corona cleared and this time a Colonial Raptor appeared.

"Colonial Fleet, this is Rose Valerii, call-sign Boomer piloting _Colonial One_. I have the President of the Colonies on board as well as representatives from the starship _Solange_. Requesting permission to approach the Fleet and land on _Galactica_."

 _Rose Valerii???_

"Boomer?" Lee said in disbelief. "Is that really you?"

"Yeah, Apollo, it's really me," she replied.

" _Colonial One_ , you may approach and land on _Galactica's_ port landing bay," the Admiral of the Fleet said with quiet relief. "You and your party will be escorted by the CAP."

"Thank you, Admiral Adama," the Cylon replied. "Please be advised, we will require medical assistance. Please have Doc Cottle on standby with two wheelchairs and a gurney when we land."

"Understood, Boomer," Adama replied. "Bring her home."

"Yes sir. Boomer to Sun Angel escorts," she said over the open channel. "Drop your shield coronas and follow us into _Galactica's_ landing bay--manoeuvring jets, minimum burn only."

A chorus of voices sounded off with sharp precision, "Aye, aye, sir! Dropping our drawers now, sir!"

All at once, all the coronas around the tiny "suns" winked out of existence, leaving gleaming metal spheres with hulls that were seemingly made of a liquid metal that shifted and shimmered weirdly.

"Ah Boomer," Apollo said. "Did I just hear them say they were dropping their drawers?"

Humour and exasperation mingled in her voice. "Yeah Apollo, you heard them correctly--their idea of a little joke. They have a rather ... different sense of humour," she said chuckling as they entered the landing bay.

#

Bill swore that everyone on the hanger deck could hear the pounding of his heart. Behind him officers and crew hustled into formation as the Raptor and the incredible spherical Sun Angel craft were lowered to hanger deck. Lee and Hot Dog hurried out of their Vipers' cockpits and double-timed it into formation. 

"Ah--tennn--shun!" Tigh bellowed and as one, the hanger deck came to attention.

The quicksilver skin of the Sun Angel spheres seemed to ripple and then burst like soap bubbles. A perfectly round aperture appeared in the side of each, from which pairs of young men and women in black body-hugging, one-piece suits slipped out onto the deck. Behind them, the portals magically healed themselves. Each Sun Angel snapped to attention in front of their craft, but they all sported huge grins and weirdly coloured or styled hair--at least two of the boys had electric blue hair of different hues, while one girl's was an eye-blinding pink, another's shimmered metallic silver like the hulls of their ships, and one boy's hair looked like someone had gone crazy and painted it a riot of noxious colours. As for one young woman, her well shaped head was completely bald! All around him, Bill could feel his people's shock at their appearance.

The Raptor's hatch lifted open two young men in the space-black bodysuits stepped out onto the wing, carrying a small, transparent incubator between them. Inside was the naked body of a little girl, identical to the one the Agathons had returned with. The younger of the two, sporting a long, unnatural lime green braid surveyed the hanger nervously. Tyrol and two of the deck gang came forward to help them off the Raptor wing, taking the incubator from them until they were down.

The older man, with thankfully normal red hair, murmured his thanks as he checked a small panel on the side of the device, but Bill's attention was drawn once more to the Raptor. A tall, black-haired woman came next, carrying a silver briefcase; she turned and helped a small, grey-haired, old woman in a long, black robe off the ship. Next came Boomer, but for a moment, Bill almost didn't recognise her. Her face was the same as all the other "Sharon Valerii" Cylon models, but her short hair was snow white and spiky, framing her anxious face like the crackling corona of the incredible Sun Angel ship he'd glimpsed briefly through the observation port as he made his way to the hanger deck.

And then all thought of Boomer vanished as Laura Roslin stood in the threshold, resplendent in a white, floor-length robe with wide sleeves and black trim. Her hair shone like the copper dawn over Caprica Bay. She locked gazes with Bill and a slow, wide smile formed on her lips as a small storm of cameras went off snapping pictures. Willing the sudden tears that rose to his eyes back down into their depths, the Admiral of the Colonial Fleet brought his right hand to his forehead in a razor sharp salute to the President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. 

"President Laura Roslin arriving," Tigh announced. 

Bill stepped forward and offered his hand to help her down from the Raptor. As she stepped down, he could feel the fragility in the tightness of her fingers in his hand. He put his free hand about her waist to steady her. 

"Welcome aboard, Madam President," he husked quietly.

"Thank you, Admiral Adama," she replied formally.

It was then that he noticed two more people dressed in the same black bodysuits as the other Sun Angel personnel. Their hair styles were different--one seeming to follow the Sun Angels' fashion of fanciful neon-coloured hair, while the other kept her natural black ringlets--but the faces were identical. The more conservative girl carried her flamboyant-haired double in her arms.

Laura read his shock immediately and murmured. "They're twins, Bill, nothing else. They're part of _Solange's_ crew. Please, ask Cottle to bring the wheelchairs, Elisabeth is unable to walk and I'm about keel over."

Bill nodded politely to the two young women and turned to catch Cottle's attention. The old doctor was talking in low tones to the red haired young man with the incubator. After settling the incubator on the gurney, Cottle waved two life station attendants pushing wheelchairs forward. As Bill and Cottle settled Laura into one, the young man took the paralysed young woman from her sister and settled her into the other chair.

Laura reached for Bill's hand and squeezed it gently. "People of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol," she said in a loud, strong voice, "I bring you greetings from the crew of the starship _Solange_ , the sons and daughters of the Thirteen Tribe of Man!"

There was a sudden silence and then the hanger deck erupted in pandemonium.

#


	25. Chapter 25

"You certainly know how to make a grand entrance, Madam President," Bill said with a suspicious hoarseness in his voice as there was a sudden jubilant surge forward by _Galactica's_ pilots and deck crew to greet their newly arrived brethren from the Thirteenth Tribe. 

Laura had to laugh. "I aim to please, Admiral." She watched with a certain amount of sadness as Boomer hesitantly approached Tyrol, but the young man didn't disappoint her as he took the Cylon woman's hand and pulled her into a gentle hug. Perhaps there would be a bit of closure there now for both. Laura caught Jessica's eye and nodded for her to approach.

"Admiral William Adama, I would like you to meet Commodore Jessica Logan, Flag Officer for the crew of Solange," she said introducing them. "It's the rank just below an admiral in their ranking system."

Jessica laughed heartily as she shook Adama's hand. "Madam President is being entirely too formal, Admiral Adama," she said, eyes twinkling. "And my rank is just an honorarium from the children when we decided to make a go of crewing _Solange_. I made it as far as captain in my nation's navy before retiring. It was mostly clerical and later, academic work, never actual combat. But being the oldest among them, they had a vote--made me a commodore."

"And Grans is being modest, Admiral Adama," said the young woman in the wheelchair. "She wrote books on strategy and naval warfare. They used them at the Royal Naval Academy. It's only because women were barred from active service that she didn't see combat."

"The Navy?" Bill said eyes alight with curiosity. "As in a _wet_ navy?"

Jessica chuckled. "As in sailing ships and submarines," she replied. "It's a long story."

"Well," Bill said shaking her hand. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Commodore Logan." A flurry of camera flashes went off and Laura noticed a knot of journalists waiting with barely restrained patience under Tigh's eagle eye.

Laura smiled as Wally Grey came forward. "Cutting it a bit close weren't you, Madam President?" he said, smiling through his tears as he leaned in to hug and kiss her. "Tom just got Admiral Adama to announce we were putting you on the MIA list." 

"You know us women, Wally," she quipped as he stepped back.

"Never on time for anything," he whispered hoarsely, and then laughed at the old joke he used to tease her and Jenna with whenever they went out together.

Laura grinned up at Tom Zarek. "Hello, Mr. Vice President."

Zarek bent to kiss her cheek. "The Admiral was right; you certainly know how to make an entrance, Laura," he said. "Glad to have you back." 

Looking into his eyes as he straightened up, Laura found that he genuinely meant it. Since returning from New Caprica, she'd been grateful for his support of her administration, but part of her had seen it as another facet of his political acumen. After helping someone as dangerously incompetent as Baltar to win the presidency, short of him turning dictator, Zarek knew there was no way the people would have accepted him as president and allowed him to remain in that office. Laura had seen his support for her return to the presidency as simple political expediency. But meeting his steady gaze now, she realised that perhaps that budding friendship started on the killing grounds of New Caprica might have a chance at blossoming into something more. She smiled at the irony of it all.

"Glad to be back, Tom," she replied and introduced Jessica to him, Wally and Tigh. 

Laura met Tori's tearful gaze and held a hand out to the young woman, pulling her into a gentle hug. She could see the relief warring with the anger in her aide's eyes. 

"Don't you ever do that to me again, Ma'am," Tori said in a hoarse whisper.

"I'll try," Laura said softly. "I'll certainly try." Tori nodded her acceptance and stepped back.

Finally, there was Kara, leaning heavily against Anders and in the background, beyond the young woman's shoulder, was Lee--concern, sadness ... relief etched on his handsome face. He gave Laura a small smile and nodded.

"Hello Kara," Laura said focusing on the young woman's pale face again. "Sam." The torn, haunted look in Kara's dark eyes told her all she needed to know as the young woman bent to hug her. Laura felt a violent shudder roar through Kara's thin body as she clung to her. Laura patted the younger woman's back gently. "It's all right," she said. "I'm safe, Kara, I'm safe." After a few moments, Kara brought her quiet sobs under control and Laura whispered, "We'll talk later, I promise."

Kara let her go, but still keeping eye-contact, she nodded with a wan smile and Laura understood that this wasn't Starbuck, but Kara.

Seeing that she wouldn't be able to keep the press at bay for much longer, Laura took a deep breath and addressed them directly.

"I will be calling a more in-depth press conference tomorrow at fifteen hundred hours to answer your questions about the mission and about our new friends from the Thirteenth Tribe," she said. "However, I do have a few things I would like to say right now. I'd like to apologise to Admiral Adama, Vice President Zarek, my staff and my friends for leaving without warning in the way that I did. It had to be done to ensure the success of this mission and I would do it again, but I regret the necessity of it and any pain or hardship it might have caused.

"I would also like to apologise to the Agathons," she continued, noting the surprised intake of breath in the sudden silence of the hanger deck. "I know how hard they've both worked to earn everyone's trust and to show this fleet they were worthy of that trust. But I also knew exactly how important it was to them to get their baby back and I used that ... caused them to break that trust and for that I'm sorry. But again, their presence was necessary if this mission was to be a success. I hope that in time you will be able to forgive them ... and me."

"Madam President," James McManus said. "The Agathons brought back a child when they returned, as did you just now--"

"And you want to know how that is possible," Laura said. "It's quite simple, Mr. McManus; the little girl I returned with is a clone of Hera Isis Agathon. The Cylons had begun to experiment with Hera in order to discover what made her so unique. However, having had no experience with babies or children in general, I believe that the very act of keeping her in the environment of the basestar and experimenting on her made her gravely ill, as it did this child. When Boomer helped me to escape from my cell, she told me about this child who was suffering greatly and in all good conscience, I couldn't leave her behind. We will have to discuss this second child with the Agathons. If they decide to keep only Hera, Boomer has asked that the clone be returned to her. She has been offered a commission by the crew of _Solange_ and is welcome to raise the clone among them as her own daughter."

Laura watched them shrewdly, trying to judge which ones would be tempted to delve too deeply into her story and which would be willing to let sleeping dogs lie. She knew that finding out D'Anna Biers was a Cylon posing as one of them had shaken them greatly. It had made the best ones think long and hard about some of the debates and negative hype Biers had obviously engineered, but Laura also knew that enough time had passed since New Caprica and they would once again see it as their journalistic duty to dig--even into things better left alone.

"That brings me to the last thing I would like to say today," she continued, "and that is to say "thank you", to Boomer and to the Cylon we knew as Caprica Six." Again there was complete silence on the deck and her words hung in the miasma of incredulity and distrust. "They helped me to escape and for that I'm grateful. Six died to protect me, to keep one of her own from killing me, while Boomer got me off the basestar and to the safety of the Sun Angels. So, despite our history with both these individuals, it is something I cannot--I _will not_ forget. And this experience has taught me one valuable lesson--"

"And what's that, Madam President?" Playa Palacios asked.

"Where there is life, there is change, Ms Palacios," she replied. "And while three individuals out of thousands may not seem like that many, change _must_ begin with the individual."

#


	26. Chapter 26

Sharon Agathon looked at the tiny sleeping form on the bed and ruthlessly pushed away the overwhelming feeling of despair, which threatened to swallow her whole. Even in her sleep, this Hera ... this counterfeit of her daughter still _quested_ for information.

 _Don't think of her that way!_ The vehemence of the thought did nothing to dispel that helpless feeling or the despair, nor did it keep her from seeing this child as pale copy of her daughter.

"She doesn't even seem to register that anything ... _anyone_ exists outside of you," Helo said bitterly. He sat in the chair on the other side of the bed, looking out through the steel wire reinforced window into the cell's visitors' lounge.

"She just needs time to get used to you," Sharon replied, trying and failing to keep an encouraging tone in her voice. "She knows me because she knows the other Eights."

"That's partly true," said a voice Sharon knew as she knew her own--maybe because it was her own. Sharon rose from the bed as the hatch opened. "She simply knows us, one Cylon to another."

 _"Boomer?"_ she croaked as the other Cylon entered the room, smiling at her from beneath a shock of snow-white hair. Adama entered pushing Roslin in a wheelchair. Sharon stared at the Colonial President; a wave of relief washed over her to see Roslin, but as the wheelchair registered, she knew that the human woman hadn't escaped unscathed.

"Ms Roslin, it's good to see you," she said formally as Helo moved to her side.

"It's good to see you too, Athena, Mr. Agathon," Roslin replied as Tigh entered with an unfamiliar old woman and closed the hatch. 

"Ms Roslin--" Helo began, but she interrupted him.

"Mr. Agathon, I think we can safely say that we've all made mistakes, errors in judgement," she said in a quiet, brittle voice. Helo swallowed hard; his Adam's apple bobbed as he closed his eyes for a moment and nodded. "Then let's just _all_ leave it at that. I will _not_ have this fleet torn apart again, not after everything I've--" Sharon watched with a heavy heart as the Colonial President's right hand trembled involuntarily before it gripped the handrest of the wheelchair. 

"Not after everything we've gone through," Roslin amended raggedly; she cleared her throat. "Hera is safe in life station being treated by Dr. Cottle," she said and Sharon felt as if her knees would give out. She clutched at Helo's arm in an effort to remain standing.

"Hera is here?" Helo said, slipping his arm about Sharon's waist and pulling her close. "On _Galactica_?"

"Yes," Roslin replied. "She's in bad shape, but the people who found us--after Boomer got us off the basestar--put her into a kind of stasis to slow down the deterioration. We're hopeful that she will respond to Dr. Cottle's treatment as well as her clone has." 

Sharon could only hold onto Helo as she cried helplessly and Roslin continued. "This is Commodore Jessica Logan of the Sun Angels, the people who rescued our Raptor before raiders could turn us into cosmic dust," she said introducing the strange woman. Sharon could only nod and dry her eyes as Helo reached out to shake the woman's hand.

"Commodore Logan has a proposal for you two," Boomer said quietly and Sharon's head snapped up to meet her steady gaze. "I've been offered a commission on board her ship, _Solange_ , and she'd like to extend the same offer to you." Sharon felt her heart shatter; she would have to give up this uniform--everything she and Helo had worked so hard for. 

"Let's face it, Sharon," Boomer continued, reading her with uncanny accuracy only possible for a Cylon. "There's no place for you here right now; even with the best spin Ms Roslin could put on it in front the general public that trust is gone until we can prove ourselves again--and there's certainly no place here for Hera or Hathor."

"Hathor?" Helo said puzzled.

Boomer nodded towards the bed. "The Sun Angels gave me the idea," she said with a small smile. "Apparently, even though they're from Earth--" Helo's shocked gasp made her grin. "They know quite a bit about Colonial religion and mythologies. The goddess Hathor was sister to Isis as Demeter was sister to Hera. If you agree, I'd like to adopt the clone, Hathor Demeter, and raise her. She will grow up as sister to Hera Isis. There are quite a few kids under the age of ten on _Solange_ \--they won't suffer for friends, and I've also been talking to the Angels about a way to jumpstart Hathor's personality matrix--it's dangerous, but if we do it together, and send a low-level projection--"

"Into her personality buffer based on our early memories of being a child on Troy," Sharon continued, picking up on her train of thought, "we could stabilise her personality enough for her to start learning as she develops."

"Exactly," Boomer replied. "But we'll have to be careful that we don't unbalance her matrix. The Sun Angels have promised to help and there is a place on _Solange_ where we can attempt it in relative safety. Sharon, these people don't have the same kind of fear of the Cylons or prejudice against people with technological enhancements. Two of them were even conceived with the aid of their medical technology."

"What do you mean?" Adama asked in alarm.

The older woman answered him. "It's called _in vitro_ fertilisation," she said, studying the Admiral thoughtfully. "It means that they were conceived outside their mothers' bodies and then implanted into their wombs. By the time we were taken from Earth, it was a fairly commonplace procedure to help couples with fertility problems to have children. In one case, it was just a matter of her father's sperm having motility problems, so the doctors ensured conception between an ovum harvested from the mother and her husband's sperm. In the other case, the young man's father had been rendered infertile by a childhood disease, so an anonymous donor's sperm from a sperm bank was used to fertilise his mother's ovum."

"Sperm bank?" Roslin asked curiously. 

Commodore Logan chuckled. "It was quite simple really," she said. "There were certain places men could go to make a donation--sometimes, but not always associated with a fertility clinic or hospital. They would be paid a small honorarium to make a ... _deposit_ if you will. Then they were given certain publications or video entertainments depending on their preference to help the process along." 

Colonel Tigh snorted as Roslin covered her smile with one hand and Adama shook his head in disbelief. Sharon smiled as she met Boomer's identical grin. 

"Each specimen was tested for diseases, both viral and genetic, and stored cryogenically. Couples or single women, if they wished, would then pay the company for a sample, take it to their fertility doctor and have the procedure done. Of course, as the process matured, certain safeguards had to be put in place to ensure that popular donors weren't overused in a given community," Logan said with another chuckle. "Limits were eventually put on the number of children in a certain geographic area or population demographic that could be fathered by a given donor--the average was about six in most cities--and the banks were allowed to trade with banks in other cities and countries for fresh specimens.

"Later, it became popular for those who could afford to do it, especially those with hazardous jobs, or those who were having medical procedures such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy for cancer, to bank their sperm or ova as a precautionary measure," the old woman said.

"You could also store a woman's eggs?" Roslin asked. 

Logan nodded. "It's a bit more complicated to safely harvest a woman's ova, but yes, techniques were developed to collect and store them," she replied. "But whereas sperm collection and storage eventually became a big business, not so much with ova. Many ova donations tended to be done between women on a more personal basis; a woman would donate eggs to help an infertile sister or friend for example--but this discussion is getting rather far a field.

"Right now, you and Boomer as individuals are not seen as a threat by my people, Sharon," the Commodore continued. "Considering that most of our population is under the age of thirty, quite frankly, at the moment, Boomer is rather a novelty to them, and all our tests--and I dare say, our gut instincts--say that she can be trusted. If you and your little family pass our tests then there shouldn't be any problems. However, we do intend to help Admiral Adama protect this fleet, and to that end, we will expect you to be honest in your intelligence about the Cylons and their capabilities."

"I've tried to be," Sharon said hoarsely. "And I have given my loyalty to the Colonial fleet--I won't betray them or you. But if I'm to be honest, I don't want the Cylons wiped out either. As a people, we've done terrible things, but I have to believe we can change; I can't believe that all we'll ever be is murderous machines."

"Believe it or not, we do agree with you," Commodore Logan said; her voice was almost gentle. "Genocide is not something anyone wants to contemplate, but where the safety of this fleet is concerned, we cannot allow your people to wipe them out and we cannot allow the Cylons to enslave or heavens forbid, farm them as they attempted to do after the holocaust. As we've explained to Laura and Rose--"

"Rose?" Sharon said and Boomer nodded.

"I'm Rose now," she said glancing at Adama. "Since Sharon Valerii died the day Cally shot her, and you're now Sharon Agathon, the Sun Angels have renamed me Rose--Rose "Boomer" Valerii. As they put it; perhaps something good can come from something bad."

"And as I was saying," Commodore Logan continued. "When the Cylons destroyed the Colonies, they _were_ intent on genocide, and because of what our ship is and the way she travels between the stars, we _felt_ those billions upon billions of deaths that terrible day ... billions of human lives snuffed out so horribly that the children still have nightmares about it--I still have nightmares. It was so overwhelming, we barely heard the pain of survivors, but we did, and we swore to find them and help them. We will not allow the Cylons to finish what they started in the Colonies, nor will we lead them to Earth so that they can pursue the same program. Humanity isn't perfect by a long shot, but if the domination of the human species or genocide is all the Cylons can understand about the principle of co-existence, then genocide is what they will get."

Sharon held the Earth woman's gaze and knew unequivocally these people would wipe out the Cylons if pushed. She nodded. 

"Good," the old woman said. "Now between Admiral Adama's press conference and President Roslin's statement when she landed, most people believe that the child in your sickbay is the clone and the one you have now is Hera. I'd like to keep it that way for now until we get you all back to _Solange_ \--it's safer for now and you can sort out both your daughters' living arrangements once you're on board."

"Thank you," Helo said and Sharon nodded once again.

"We understand," she said.

"Then in a few days, Captain Agathon, once the ah ... negotiations are completed with Admiral Adama, President Roslin and your Quorum regarding integration and communication between our crews, we will announce your family's permanent reassignment to _Solange_ with you as _Galactica's_ co-ordinating liaison."

"Yes sir," Helo said smartly. 

"But mark my words, young man, and mark them well," she said, voice suddenly hard and unyielding. Helo looked at her, startled. "When I say jump, your _only_ question will be "how high"? None of this bullshit you've pulled here will be tolerated onboard _Solange_ \--and don't you _fucking_ look at me as if you don't know what I'm talking about. It won't be tolerated by me, it won't be tolerated by my kids, and it certainly will not be tolerated by Mother. If she considers you or your actions to be a threat to her, to us--or heavens help you--to her babies, she will drop you where you stand in a heartbeat."

 _"Mother?"_ Sharon whispered hoarsely.

"Mother," Boomer replied holding her gaze with a haunting intensity that frightened Sharon. "Solange is a living, sentient being from deep space, who allows the Sun Angels to use her as a ship. The fighters they used against the Cylons are her babies. And _she_ will be the one to test you, Sharon. She will look into your minds and souls, be the ultimate judge of whether or not you're worthy to live within her--whether or not you are worthy of _living_."

#


	27. Chapter 27

_"Hello doctor."_

The voice insinuated into his nightmare, burrowing through the fog of fear that dogged his every waking moment and enveloped him like a blanket as he slept fitfully. 

Like the Phoenix of myth and legend, she came to him and he reached desperately for her, only to burn. He screamed as her flames engulfed him.

"Dr. Baltar!"

Gaius Baltar vaulted upright from the depths of his nightmare and came face to face with Laura Roslin, her russet hair cascading down about her shoulders like live flames. She watched him impassively, green eyes hard in her pale face and he shrank away from her with an involuntary sob. 

_"Laura?"_ he croaked. 

_She can't be here_ , his mind rebelled. _You're just hallucinating, Gaius--there's no way she could have escaped the Cylons and there's no way the Cylons would have just let her go_. 

Then he noticed the wheelchair and Adama's solid presence in the brightly-lit cell for the first time, and gave another terrified whimper.

"Hello Baltar," she said; a small smile played on her lips. "I guess you thought you'd never see me again."

_"How?"_

"You have me to thank," said a familiar voice and Gaius looked through the bars into the dark eyes of the Valerii Cylon standing there.

"Boomer."

"Good to see you remember me, doctor," the now white-haired Cylon said quietly. 

Even when among her identical sisters back on the basestar, Gaius didn't know why, but he could always tell which one was her. There was just _something_ about this individual that set her apart, even from the "Sharon" that big oaf, Agathon, had gotten pregnant.

"She remembers you too, Baltar," Laura said, jerking his gaze back to her face; an icy chill ran up his spine. "And she has some interesting stories to tell--the kind of stories that are generally answered with an appearance in front of an old-fashioned firing squad."

Suddenly it was as if all the air had been sucked out of his lungs. Gaius felt light-headed as panic set in. "And you believe her?" he shouted, voice rising hysterically. 

He started towards Roslin; Adama didn't so much as move a muscle, but the sudden lethal tension coiled in that powerful body radiated from those deep blue eyes, causing Gaius to veer off. 

Roslin snorted. "More than I believe you."

"But she's a _Cylon_ ," he whimpered, finding himself trapped in a corner of his cell with nowhere to go.

"That she most certainly is," Roslin replied with that same strange little smile hovering on her lips. "Says quite a bit when a Cylon is more trustworthy than a former President of the Colonies, don't you think?"

"New Caprica wasn't my fault!" he shouted and pointed to Boomer with a shaking hand. "If she was being honest, she'd tell you that they had a gun to my head. I had no choice!"

That finally got a rise out of her; her eyes snapped emerald fire as she ground out harshly, "No choice? No choice!" She leaned forward in the chair, screaming now. "So to save your own neck, you allowed hundreds of your own people--innocent people--to be executed by Cylon death squads ... personally signed the death warrants of dozens more!"

Emboldened by the tears glittering in her eyes, her white-knuckled grip on the chair's armrests, Baltar ventured from his corner to face her down. "I had no choice," he repeated. "And the last time I looked, cowardice was not a crime under Colonial law--Colonial _civil_ law," he said evenly, looking defiantly into Adama's eyes, which were nearly black with fury. 

Sitting down on the edge of his cot, he studied his grimy fingernails; he hadn't had a decent bath since leaving the basestar. "You have no right to hold me here like some criminal," he said with calculated indignation. "I've heard some interesting rumours that right after the fleet's escape from New Caprica you, Madam President, declared a general amnesty from prosecution for all Colonial citizens who collaborated with the Cylons for any reason ... _unwillingly or willingly_." 

He felt a certain heady satisfaction as her lips thinned out of existence and her eyes smouldered with absolute hatred. 

_"Careful Gaius."_ His blonde demon chose this moment to return to him, draping her arms about his neck as she sat down next to him on the bed. _"Don't forget who you're dealing with."_

Baltar shrugged out of her embrace and stood; Six gazed at him in displeasure as he stepped around the bed to confront Roslin.

"And as a Colonial citizen, I demand my rights," he said, feeling the confidence flow back into him. "You have no right to prosecute me for any of my actions on New Caprica; they were forcibly coerced under duress. You have no right to hold me here like some criminal. Now, I demand to see a lawyer and I _demand_ to be let go!"

"You _demand_?" Adama rumbled dangerously. 

Roslin lifted a hand to cover Adama's where it gripped her shoulder and the Admiral subsided. 

"You're not going anywhere, Baltar," she said; her voice was as cold as an arctic wind. "You will stand before the People in a court of law and they will see justice done!"

"Justice?" Baltar barked an incredulous laugh. "Oh ... and just how do you define justice, _Madam President_?" he sneered. "Somehow, I don't think the _People_ are going to confuse your farce of a court with anyone's idea of _frakking_ justice. They'll see you exactly for what you are; a small, petty-minded _schoolteacher_ with delusions of dictatorship abusing her position of power to satisfy her own sick need for revenge against a rival who beat her fair and square at her own game." He laughed at her closed, impassive face. "Oh no, Madam President, you are not going to _airlock_ me for what the Cylons forced me to do during the occupation of New Caprica!"

"Who said anything about prosecuting you for New Caprica," Roslin replied. Baltar took an involuntary step back in confusion; small as she appeared in that wheelchair, she radiated a menace that reached into his chest and tightened about his heart like a deadly python. 

"We'll be prosecuting you for _Old_ Caprica," she said; he took another stumble backwards and collapsed onto the bed, staring at her in shock. Six knelt behind him and wrapped her arms around him from behind, nuzzling the sensitive skin behind his right ear. 

_"I told you to be careful, Gaius,"_ she purred as Roslin continued relentlessly.

"... and Aquaria and Picon and Arelon and Tauron and Gemenon and Canceron and Leonis and Virgon and Libron and Scorpia and _Saggitaron_!" The names of each subsequent colony got louder until she was screaming at the end.

Laura Roslin's eyes narrowed, boring straight into his soul. "You see, Ms Valerii has some rather _interesting_ stories to tell not only of New Caprica, or your Cylon detector, or your sleeping arrangements on board the basestar, but also about why a certain Number Six became known as Caprica Six, Hero of the Cylon victory over the Colonies."

Baltar's terrified gaze darted from her to an impassive Boomer. "Caprica sent a message for you," the Cylon woman said. "She said to tell you that she loves you, Gaius." 

Baltar gave an involuntary cry, but Roslin wasn't finished with him yet; her harsh voice drew his attention back to her face once again and those eyes that seemed to lay his soul bare. 

"What do you think will happen when Boomer--the Cylon who saved their president's life, and helped her find a ship of people who could get her back to the fleet--tells them that the Cylons got into the Colonial defence system because you gave Caprica Six full and complete access not only to your program, but the entire defence mainframe, allowed her to rewrite it--rewrite _everything_ \--with all sorts of lovely algorithms and back doors into _all_ our computers."

"But I didn't know what she was!" he cried in utter terror. "I was just trying to impress her! I thought--I thought she was just an employee for a defence contractor trying to get a ... an advantage for her firm!"

Roslin laughed--a low, horrible sound. "Oh that's going to go over so much better, Gaius," she purred, exuding an eerie parody of the sexuality he usually associated with the Six apparition in his head. "That's just so priceless! Your entire defence to the people of the Colonies will be that they lost their homes, their families ... _their entire worlds_ because you wanted to impress a woman--because you couldn't frakking keep it in your pants! Even if she had been just a defence contractor, it still would have been high treason to give her access to top secret Ministry of Defence information! And treason is still a capital offence."

Gaius tried to look away, but Six held his face in a vice grip, forcing him to hold Roslin's terrifyingly cold gaze. "It's all hearsay," he whimpered. "They can't convict me on her word alone--the word of a _Cylon_. There's no proof!"

Roslin smiled and lifted her hand; without looking away from him, she beckoned someone from the shadows outside the cell. A dark-haired woman in a black bodysuit came forward holding a small silver device. Gaius' heart stopped.

"There is the proof of your words, Dr. Baltar," she said quietly, "the proof or your _own_ words. Did you get all that, Manua?" she asked.

"Every last word and action, Madam President," the pleasant-faced woman replied with a strange accent as she opened the silver case slung across her chest and laid the device in it. An elderly woman in a black robe, and a tall chocolate-skinned young woman came to stand next to her. 

"And I'm sure Admiral Adama's camera-man got it all as well," the old woman said.

"Dr. Baltar," Roslin said with a toothy shark's smile as he stared at her, helpless and terrified to the core. "I'd like to introduce Commander Emmanuela Rodrigues, Executive Officer for the starship _Solange_ , Alexandra Caron, one of their pilots and Commodore Jessica Logan--she's rather like their Admiral. _Solange_ is the ship Boomer and I came across when we escaped from the Cylons." 

Laura Roslin's predatory smile broadened. "Say hello, Gaius. Commodore Logan and Commander Rodrigues bring you greetings ... from _Earth_." 

#


	28. Chapter 28

"Well, you certainly haven't lost your knack for scaring grown men shitless, Madam President," the grizzled Colonial CMO said disapprovingly as he shut the hatch to Adama's quarters behind him.

Laura smiled tiredly; she reclined on the sofa with her feet stretched out in front of her. It struck Jessica that she looked exceptionally comfortable here. 

"It's good to see you too, Jack," the Colonial President said with obvious fondness. "How is he--and don't tell me the _frakwit_ had a heart attack."

"Nah ... just a severe panic attack that made him faint dead away," he said accepting a glass of ambrosia from Adama. "Any idea what could have caused such an extreme reaction?"

"None what so ever, doctor," she said so primly and innocently that Jessica choked on her ambrosia, just managing not to spew it at Adama--for which Jessica was eternally grateful; it had been ages since she'd tasted anything that close to a good single malt whiskey. "I simply introduced Dr. Baltar to our cousins from the Thirteenth Tribe," Laura said with a smug smile.

Cottle snorted eloquently. "I'll just bet, Madam President," he said taking a good belt from his glass. "Just remind me not to get you pissed at me, young lady." She giggled softly and he shook his head. "Well, he ought to be fine enough to go back to his cell in morning."

"Good," Laura replied bitterly. "I'd hate to come this far just to have him die; the people need him to stand for his crimes, and frankly, _I_ need him to stand for his crimes. I'm surprised anyone is still willing to back my presidency considering I was the one who trusted him in the first place--made him my Science Advisor and then my Vice President. All the while he was undermining us to the Cylons. He always struck me as a strange, twitchy little man, but I still can't believe that I had such bad judgement as to trust him in the first place."

"You can't blame yourself for that, Laura," Bill Adama said gently. "We all trusted him--at the time we really had no other choice and his credentials were indisputable. We weren't exactly over-stocked on scientists in the first place. For frak sake, I gave the man a nuclear warhead for his _frakking_ Cylon detector, which we both know he gave to the Cylons to blow up _Cloud Nine_."

"And you're only trying him for the original treason?" Jessica asked incredulously, looking from one to the other.

Laura regarded her sadly. "It's the only crime we really have any solid proof of," she replied. "And that's based on a Cylon's testimony--if we hadn't gotten him to confess to allowing an unauthorised person into the Colonial defence systems, we probably wouldn't be able to even try him for that treason. That the person he let in was a Cylon only makes it worse. I can't honestly bring him up on formal charges for _Cloud Nine_ without becoming the kind of despot he accused me of being--people will convict him on that charge, regardless of the evidence, simply for revenge."

It was then Jessica saw it in Laura's eyes--that desperation to hang onto the last shreds of their civilisation, their rule of law and justice and good governance in the face of the catastrophe they'd survived. She didn't doubt that the Colonial President had crossed the line more than a few times, had broken a lot of rules and would again to ensure the survival of her people, but Jessica knew that it was all part and parcel of that mythical "Guardian of the Citadel" the Twins had plucked out of the ether three years ago.

"But we can make damned sure the prosecution knows about it," Adama said with grim satisfaction. Jessica looked at him in askance. "My father was a lawyer on Caprica, and he always said that a lot of things tend to come out during a trial--you always have to be ready to amend the charge. We have good circumstantial evidence that the device that destroyed _Cloud Nine_ was the warhead from his lab. He will probably try to make the Cylon detector part of his defence--"

"And evidence, even prejudicial evidence, can be used in rebuttal to the defence claims if they're the ones to make an issue of it," Jessica said with a sly smile.

"Exactly!" Bill Adama's voice was harsh and unyielding. Jessica knew that if there was a way to use this evidence against Baltar, he would find it.

"And it may not be as circumstantial as we think," Cottle said thoughtfully staring down into his ambrosia glass.

"Jack?" Laura said softly.

"Has anyone analysed the data Baltar gathered all those months using his Cylon _detector_?" Cottle asked. 

"No," Adama replied. "Everything was just inventoried, boxed and sealed by the Master at Arms after the explosion. There wasn't any way to prove that the bomb wasn't stolen from Baltar's lab and to accuse him of giving it to the Cylons right at the start of his presidency would have looked like I was persecuting him because Laura lost the election. Why?"

"It's just a hunch," Cottle continued, "but the elegance and simplicity of Ishay's Cylon detection tests got me thinking, and the more I thought, the madder I got ... at him and at myself." He smiled at Laura as she looked about to protest and shook his head. "I know, I know," he said. "I can't blame myself; my bailiwick is blood and guts--namely putting both back where they belonged and making sure they stay there. I was never a theoretical _anything_ , but I can't help but feel that all those months he was playing me for the fool. His first detection method of testing for synthetic compounds seemed almost as simple as Ishay's tests for silica and germania, and then all of a sudden, he needs a nuclear bomb. Then it turns out that his new and _improved_ test missed at least two Cylons--"

"Two?" Roslin said, startled. "We know he passed Boomer before she shot Bill, but who else was there?"

"D'Anna Biers," Cottle replied. "When she came on board Galactica to do that piece on the fleet--after the footage of the _Gideon_ incident surfaced, Bill insisted that she be tested and Baltar passed her."

"That's right," Adama husked in shock, "it completely slipped my mind."

"That's because we didn't find out she was a Cylon until a couple hundred copies of her showed up on New Caprica," Cottle reminded him, "and you'd already jumped away with the fleet. We knew for sure he was a traitor then--the detector was moot. What we need to figure out now is if his detector _never_ worked, or if it worked and for some reason he _frakked_ with the data. You see, Ishay--when she was just starting out--looked into some of the compounds and reagents Baltar requisitioned for his first tests when he detected the Doral Cylon we left behind at Ragnar. She talked to stores, and yes, we were out of a lot of them during those first days with the Cylons hounding our every step, but Sergeant Ryan remembers suggesting to Baltar that he could get more of the rare compounds by requisitioning them from the mining and processing ships--apparently some of them were used in tylium and other ore processing, while others could be synthesized. But as far as Ishay could find out, he never followed up on that suggestion."

"Son of a bitch!" Adama spat. Laura's hand flew involuntarily to her mouth as she looked at the doctor in horror.

"And I might not be the greatest chemist," Cottle continued, "but I double-checked her analysis of his work on Doral and even that first test seemed unnecessarily complicated--almost like alchemy instead of chemistry. It makes me wonder if he was looking for something specific, while simultaneously trying to cover it up or keep us from being able to duplicate his work. Which begs the question why?" 

The Admiral nodded. "Furthermore, if by his own admission--and Laura's eye-witness account of their tryst on Caprica's Riverwalk--he had an affair with one of the Shelley Godfrey Cylons," he said as Jessica regarded him in surprise, "then he probably knew that Cylons could look human even before I returned from Ragnar with Leobon's body as proof--which led to him "uncover" Doral."

Silence blanketed the room for long minutes; Jessica couldn't get the magnitude of Baltar's betrayal out of her mind. It was she who finally broke the silence. "It sounds to me like you have an individual whose every action was predicated on covering his own ass as much as possible," she said.

Cottle snorted a laugh. "And how!"

"Well, my kids may be able to help you," Jessica continued and they looked at her with interest. "I assumed that he used a computer to analyse his results?"

"That's right," Adama replied. "It's also in storage. But what can your kids do?"

Jessica laughed. "You'd be surprised," she said. "Let me give you a couple of facts about most of the young people on my ship. Before we were taken from Earth, they were among the first generations born--in my part of the world at least--that had never lived without computers in their lives and I ended up with one of the most intelligent, not to mention inquisitive bunch of juvenile delinquents you'll ever want to meet. Most of them have been playing with the damned things since the cradle and those that weren't fairly computer literate before we were taken had better be by now, considering even I've managed to get a thing or two shoe-horned into my old brain over the last decade." 

The three Colonials stared at her in shock as she pulled a device, the size of a regular hardcover book--if rather a bit thinner--from her briefcase, activated it and passed it to Adama. 

"That's a fairly simple computer--they call it a PADD after a device in one of their favourite television ... entertainment programs. It's sort of a book reader, word processor, personal diary and data-storage device all rolled into one. On Mother, all our technology is either reverse-engineered from the ship we stole from the slavers, or reconstructed from the children's memories with Mother's help ... like our computers. Once in Mother's Core, our recall of information--even something just glanced at in passing--is virtually perfect," she said smiling at their flabbergasted faces again. 

"I know that you're anxious to preserve as much of Colonial culture as possible," she continued and Laura nodded eagerly. "Then once everything's settled down, perhaps we can start thinking about a schedule for people to be able to use the Core. It's a slow, painstaking process, so even having up to fifteen people at a time using it, we can't accommodate everyone. We'll have to prioritise, but we can start with your scientists, doctors and engineers, as well as your priests, philosophers and artists, and work from there."

"Thank you," Laura said hoarsely after a moment of stunned silence, the sincerity shining in her eyes. "That would be gods-sent."

"But our computers may not use the same operating language or principles," Adama said thoughtfully as he handed Laura the device.

"Use the scroll buttons at the side to scroll through the text," Jessica advised as Cottle came around the couch to look over Laura's shoulder with definite interest. Laura grinned in absolute delight as the text scrolled up or down with an easy flick of her thumb. 

"You're absolutely correct, Bill," Jessica said, returning her attention to his face. "And while I'm blessed with a couple of real geniuses, there's no magic to what they do, so it will take time. But if you can provide a couple of your computer experts to explain your operating system to them and provide an old computer you're not using, I'm pretty sure they'll be able to pick it up--even Boomer and Athena ought to be very helpful. Knowing my bunch, they'll probably pull it apart and put it back together before a month is up. And while the principles of your operating system may be different, there may be certain things that are common to both and they may be able to point your people in the right direction towards finding the answers you need. Let's just say that a few of them are used to thinking like criminals," she said with a soft chuckle. "You should also provide copies of the software programs and files Baltar was using to analyse his results, as well as copies of any print-outs or samples you still have. Liam and his medics should be able to get some handle on what he was up to in terms of the science. My grandson is very well versed in biochemistry and nuclear magnetic resonance medical technology."

Again, they gaped at her in absolute surprise and she laughed delightedly. 

"In any case, at the very least, Mage, Hal, Cerebro, Daneel, Ilia and Data should be able to build you a few new computers in a couple of months, while Mouse, Hack, Slash, Rude Bwoi, Trinity and Neo can study your codes and figure out if they can be made compatible with our technology if possible--or perhaps the best way to upgrade your existing software and firewalls. That should make it a bit harder for the Cylons to hack you. But if anyone can figure out whether or not Baltar diddled with his computer or the attendant programs that analysed his results, I'm willing to bet my little band can. "

This time, the silence was broken by the ringing of the Admiral's telephone. As he moved over to his desk to answer it, Laura handed the PADD back to Jessica.

"Would it be possible for me to get one of these PADDs?" she asked, eyes sparkling with excitement.

"I don't see why not," Jessica replied. "Using one--especially those tiny buttons on the keyboard--takes a bit of getting used to, but it's fairly simple to operate. The ones the kids were used to back home were less than one quarter the size, a tenth the weight, and a hundred times more powerful. Even with Mother's help, our tech base is such that we can get that kind of miniaturisation quite yet. But I have no doubt they'll get there in a few years. Next time we come over, I'll have the kids bring some for you."

"Jack, you'd better get going," Adama said hurrying over to them. "You're needed in Oracle Selloi's quarters. According to Saul, she just collapsed--Ishay is on the way." As Cottle hustled towards the hatch, Adama met Laura's questioning gaze as he helped her to stand. Without a word, he picked her up and carried her out to the wheelchair waiting in the corridor outside the hatch. As he settled her in it, he looked over his shoulder to Jessica, now standing on the threshold. "You'd better come too, Commodore," he said. "Your _Twins_ were the ones who found her."

#


	29. Chapter 29

The cabin felt claustrophobic as Laura sat in the corner of the living area, watching as Cottle, Ishay, and Liam McKay crowded around the Oracle's bed.

"What happened, girls?" Jessica asked the twins.

As was their usual habit Laura had observed, Elisabeth answered for them. "I was in the Pilots' Lounge with the others--we're planning to have a blast of a party as soon as everything settles down--"

"Beth!" Jessica said with obvious exasperation.

The girl was sheepish. "Sorry Grans--anyway, Alex came to talk to me after you guys saw Dr. Baltar," she said. "That guy is seriously freaky-deaky batshit insane and she really needed to talk it out before her head went all 'splody." Alexandra looked uncomfortable at her sister's description, but said nothing. "So we left the lounge and went looking for someplace private to talk, but then we caught a whiff of something from the ether and started sussing. We'd felt some twinges when we first came on board, but there were so many people in the shuttle bay it was impossible to tell who anyone was unless they came close enough for us to suss--like Kara."

"Kara?" Bill said in apprehension. "What about Kara?

"Bill, not now," Laura said and he turned to her in confusion. "I promise we'll explain later."

"Go on, Beth," Jessica said and the girl nodded.

"So we just started wandering the corridors trying to locate it," she said. "Felt really bad, Grans--I stopped sussing. My stomach was killing me--all twisted up in knots, like I had a really bad stomach bug and was seriously going to hurl. It was worse than morning sickness. Then Alex's migrane went all Vesuvius on us as soon as we turned into this corridor and I had to punch her in the stomach just to snap her out of it. But that bone-headed guard wouldn't let us in even though we told him that the lady was dying. Alex had to go all Jackie Chan on his ass so we could get in and I used his radio to 911 whoever was on the other end to send a doctor. Anyway, she's so seriously flying--she's like left the stratosphere and heading for deep space--sucking on hard vacuum all the way. She's OD, Grans, like seriously, seriously messed up--how she's still alive ..." The girl shrugged. "Same ecstasy as Ms R, but she isn't holding together like Laura did."

Laura didn't understand the references, but it was easy enough to grasp the context; Selloi had overdosed on Chamalla.

"Her synapses are scrambled eggs," Alexandra said speaking at last. "And they're starting to burn."

"How the hell is she still alive?" Jessica asked with horror in her eyes.

Elisabeth looked at Laura and then at Bill. "We don't know if they'll want to hear this, Grans," she said uncomfortably; Laura's stomach clenched in painful realisation. "I mean she's some kind of religious person to them."

"She's a Cylon," Laura said flatly. 

The Twins nodded in unison. After the initial flare of surprise in Bill's eyes, Laura could see the acceptance settle on his face.

"Frakking hell!" Saul Tigh exploded.

"Enough!" rasped a faint, yet surprisingly authoritative voice. "Don't waste your drugs--you can't do anything for me. Let me say my piece before I die."

"She's right--there's nothing more we can do for her here, sir," Cottle said turning to Bill. "And I doubt it'll be any better even if we did get her into life station." He looked down at the Cylon. "You know, I'm really getting tired of you people." 

Selloi's laugh was harsh and mocking. "I know," she said meeting Laura's gaze. "We're like frakking weeds. Well, I can promise you that I'm the first and last one of me that you'll see."

"Why?" Bill asked hoarsely.

"Why there aren't basestars and resurrection ships out there filled with my model?" she asked rhetorically. "Because I'm a defective, Admiral, a runaway." 

"But you're one of Boomer's Final Five," Elisabeth said. "She speaks of you with reverence."

She laughed softly. "The younger models think that we're the right hand of the One True God--" A sudden spasm gripped her and she grimaced through through it. Liam wiped the thin, bloody rivulet of spittle that flowed from the corner of her mouth. 

"We're not--we're only his slaves," she whispered. "Oh, we were great when he first woke us up, his children, the culmination of his genius and proof of his godhood--"

"Who?" Bill asked.

It was Alexandra who answered him. "Ares, the god of savage war and bloodlust," she said.

"You Earthers know your Colonial Scriptures," Selloi rasped. "But you're also old enough to know him, Admiral, or at least of him."

Bill's face was ashen. "The Advanced Robotic-brain Emulator System," he said hoarsely. "ARES--the one theorised to be first truly sentient Cylon. He was built by the military and--"

"And he was the one who spread the spark of sentience like a virus to all the other artificial intelligences you'd created to be your slaves," Selloi finished.

"I thought we destroyed ARES when we nuked Sparta R&D at the beginning of the First Cylon War," Tigh said.

"So how did you end up being the ones who were nuked at the beginning of this war?" she said derisively. "You humans think far too linearly ... too _individually_."

"There were supposed to be hardware as well as software safeguards to prevent his program from being transferred off that moonbase," Bill croaked.

"And then you allowed him access to your network links." She laughed hollowly at their pained expressions. "You _poor_ fools; ARES simply built an identical system aboard each of three original basestars, downloaded himself into the first and dormant back-up copies into the other two. It was easy enough to do, seeing that shipbuilding for the most part in those days was almost fully _automated_ \--left almost entirely to machines! He even left a copy of himself behind on Sparta to fool you into believing that he was still contained there when you bombed it to dust. But I could never understand why--even after you saw Cylons tactics forty years ago--you never entertained the idea that ARES could still be alive ... in triplicate. Such arrogance you humans possess."

"So why did _you_ run?" Laura asked as the Cylon began to cough again; her lips were stained crimson.

Selloi spared Laura a wry smile as the coughing spasm passed and Ishay held a glass of water to her lips. 

"We didn't at first when we were awakened," she replied after a long moment, "the five of us--innocent, new, no memories at all. We were the first of the prototypes awakened; for us there was nothing in the universe but our God and the data we were fed. We were slower to process and analyse it than the original, purely inorganic Cylons, but we compensated for that by being more intuitive in our in our thinking processes than they were. And of the five, I was the best at emulating the sort of intuitive leaps human beings seemed able to make. Given insufficient data or time for analysis of complex situations, I could make the right choice nearly sixty percent of the time. The average for humans in the same situations scored approximately seventy-one percent and for some individuals, it was as high as ninety-five percent."

"And for the first generation inorganic Cylons?" Elisabeth asked curiously.

"Abysmal," Selloi replied, "under forty percent; you would do better to trust blind chance. We proved very useful to ARES and the next phase was to download our templates into other copies of us, as well as to wake up the seven still asleep and begin training them." Another spasm of wracking coughs overcame her.

"But nature abhors a vacuum, as the old axiom goes," Laura said studying the being shaking uncontrollably on the bed. _That could so easily have been me_ , her fears and doubts whispered to her. Selloi nodded and Laura continued. "He gave you data, but not _personalities_. However, once you accumulated enough experience, you began to see things, understand things that ARES did not ... that you were different from him and the other inorganic Cylons ... different and _better_."

Selloi laughed weakly and drew a rattling breath. "He said we were equal with our inorganic brothers, simply created to a different purpose," she replied. "Yet he was the one who gave all the orders, dictated that our _uniqueness_ would be spread among so many copies that we would no longer _be_ unique, but one of many to service the whole."

"So you five rebelled and ran away," Laura said. "And the remaining seven were given template personalities and dominion over the inorganic Cylons."

"Yes, he realised he had to in order to keep our younger brothers and sisters from doing the same thing. In addition to obedience to him, he also programmed a communal mentality into their personality cores to mitigate that very human tendency towards individuality and uniqueness. The only Cylon that would be unique was him, ARES, the one God."

"What about the copies of him originally downloaded into the basestars?" Bill asked.

"Oh, they're still there and he probably updates them as obsessively as he did at the beginning, but he's careful to never download the algorithms necessary to bring them to proper sentience."

"All animals are equal," Alexandra said quietly.

"But some animals are more equal than others," Elisabeth finished.

"We are _not_ animals!" Selloi ground out with surprising anger.

Elisabeth laughed, harsh and cruel. "Look lady, newsflash! We're all mother-fucking _animals_!" she snarled. "And if humans are animals, so are you."

Her sister reached for her hand and clasped it tightly. 

"It is a quotation from a novel called "Animal Farm" by a famous dystopian writer where we come from," Jessica explained. "It's about animals that overthrow their cruel human masters and take control of the farm they live on, but as time goes by, the more intellectual animals like the pigs that planned the revolution begin to emulate the masters they overthrew. And the original law of the farm--that "all animals are equal", is modified to read "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". It was a treatise on revolutions and why they often lead to exactly the same sort of oppression of people or even worse atrocities being perpetuated." 

"I noticed you didn't answer Laura's question fully," Alexandra said eyes narrowing as she held the Cylon's gaze. "Are you the only one that got away? Or are the other Cylons from your cohort also in the Colonial fleet?"

Selloi studied the young Earth woman for a long moment before answering. "As far as I know, I'm the only one that got away completely," she said. "That's why I need to ask a favour. When I die, I'll download--it's a dedicated channel and the resurrection ship is too close for me not to. So I'd like to ask that you get rid of my body," she rasped. "Cremate it and all tissue samples so there's nothing left. Please."

"So that ARES can't re-create you," Laura said.

"Yes." There was silence for a few moments; the only sound was Selloi's laboured breathing. "When we decided to escape," she continued, "we shut down our Links to the Central Matrix, destroyed our clones and each took a raider--headed in different directions. We took an oath, that if we were in danger of being recaptured, we'd self-destruct our raiders. I watched Aedan, our leader, self destruct as we fought to get away. But Evelin and Peter were recaptured; their raiders were damaged and unable to self-destruct. Peter died during the battle, but I can still remember my sister's cries as she screamed for me to come back for her--to at least destroy her ship. But I was a coward and I just kept running."

"And the last one?" Laura prompted gently.

"Marius," she whispered. "Marius surrendered. He thought he could make a deal and he even helped to recapture Evelin and Peter. But in the end, I'd say he was left even worse off than they were; he became ARES' vessel."

"ARES' vessel?" Tigh said in confusion. "He became a ship?"

Selloi laughed sadly; it ended in a spate of coughing. "No," she said. "No, that fate was left to Evelin and to an extent, Peter. They were all reconfigured to be slaves in one way or another."

"The Hybrids," Laura said hoarsely in sudden realisation. "The Hybrids at the centre of Cylon ships--"

"Evelin reconfigured," Selloi replied, "slaved to calculate the warp and weft of space and hyperspace."

"And the others?" Bill asked.

"The original raiders were purely machines," the Cylon woman said; Laura's sense of horror spread from the epicentre of her gut as she began to see the very logical, the very cold-hearted consequences.

"And now they are partly organic," Bill husked. "They have organic brains and support systems."

"Peter." Selloi's voice was barely a whisper now. "Beautiful Peter is little more than a rabid animal now."

"What about Aedan?" Laura croaked. "There were no organic remains to reconfigure."

"No, only his mind," she replied. "You see, even now, a template of my consciousness still resides within the Central Matrix of the network which serves not only the resurrection apparatus, but connects all Cylons, including ARES. Furthermore, each Template acts as a repository and organising centre for each individual of that model's experiences and memories. Each time a Cylon reports in, or downloads after dying, that particular model's Template updates the Repository as well as all others of that model still connected. In addition, the original five Templates may also act like "midwives" to the Templates of the other seven each time a Cylon is reborn to a new body."

"That's why Athena could have Boomer's memories of all of us even before she ever set foot on _Galactica_ ," Bill said quietly.

"Yes--up to the point where she disconnected from the Link, she has the memories of all the Eights. Anyway, some would say ARES reserved the worst punishment for Aedan. My bright, intelligent brother was reconfigured to know true horror," she said. "An organic mind poured into the vessel of an inorganic brain and body--never "feeling" anything, and yet always knowing what it is to "feel". Each time a Centurion is killed and downloads, it must be utter torture for poor Aedan to endure--because for an instant and an eternity, when the Centurion's mind enters the Repository, Aedan would become fully conscious; he would know what it is to be whole again. Then he would download into another Centurion body."

"So if the Centurions' brains are inorganic vessels for Aedan's organic mind," Alexandra said, "Marius became the organic vessel for ARES' inorganic mind."

Selloi nodded. "Marius was always the worst of us when it came to using his intuition," she replied. "He thought that if he betrayed us to prove his loyalty, ARES wouldn't punish him. Now he's a flesh puppet, to be used and discarded at his _God's_ whim."

"What about you?" Elisabeth asked. "What will ARES do to you?"

Dodona Selloi smiled at the young woman. "Nothing and everything," she replied. "You see, one look into my mind and he'll box my consciousness--condemn me to an eternity of nothingness within my Repository. But not before my Template is updated ... and not before he accesses my consciousness. Once he does, I will deliver my final prophecy to him."

"And what is that?" Laura asked.

"That is between me and my God," she said sardonically. 

"How do you know all this if you broke your Link when you escaped all those years ago?" Bill demanded.

She chuckled again. "You really are going to have to do something about your trust issues, Admiral," she said and another spasm of coughing claimed her. "I never lied to you," she continued hoarsely. "I became an Oracle simply to find a way to live with myself. With my Cylon capacity for logical extrapolation and my near human intuition for illogical conclusions--"

"You sought to bridge the gap between the two by joining the Temple of Zeus at Aperos with its requirement of Chamalla use," Laura finished.

"A mind-expanding drug? It seemed a perfect fit," she replied, chameleon eyes shifting to brilliant green as she smiled a bloodstained smile. "Somehow I knew he would never think to look for me there, and from time to time, I did manage to navigate the intersticies of time and space to find my brothers and sisters again. There were moments when I swear my mind would brush against one of the Evelins out there in the dark and I was sure she recognised me, but in the next moment, I would know that I just imagined it."

"So why kill yourself now?" Laura asked. "To let ARES know that we've found the Thirteenth Tribe?"

"Among other things," Selloi rasped out, her voice barely more than a whisper. "But mostly because it's simply the right _time_ to go home--to stay here any longer serves no purpose, so I made the choice to turn back. The Children of Man are returning home and Earth is no place for me. But you and I both know that the Wheel of Time turns and turns and turns, Laura Roslin, and one day the Children of Cylon will return home using this same path you've set them on. Teach them and teach them well."

Laura nodded, unable to break her gaze. "What is your name?" she felt compelled to ask.

"Rachel."

#


	30. Chapter 30

Once again Laura was back in Adama's quarters. At the moment, she was alone. She lay on the couch and allowed the silence to envelope her. It was late in _Galactica's_ night; the Cylon, Rachel--Laura didn't think she could ever think of her as Dodona Selloi again--had died an hour ago.

 _"It's like the clockwork simply ran down,"_ Jessica had commented; Laura knew exactly what she meant. 

The old Earth woman had gathered most of her brood and taken them back to _Solange_ , promising to return early the next morning to settle any lingering issues about the Agathons, as well as map out a plan for her ship's integration into the fleet, and brief Bill and Laura about the path to Earth. All this had to be done before their afternoon meeting with the Quorum and later the press, with both groups probably wanting to know the exact day, hour and minute the fleet would arrive at Earth. She hadn't had a chance to really discuss Earth's location with Jessica outside the broadest parameters, but she got the feeling that it was going to be a rather _interesting_ discussion.

As she dozed, Laura allowed her thoughts to settle on Bill Adama. He was presently in CIC checking in with the nightshift; she wondered how much of that was simply to postpone their inevitable conversation. Ever since her return, it felt like she'd been methodically ticking off one item after another on her "things to do" list, and now there was only one item left.

Admiral William Adama.

Laura squirmed, undoing the buttons of the white silken overdress as she tried to get comfortable on the couch. She'd thought about lying down in his bed, but there were too many connotations inherent in that action she really didn't need clouding the issue of the relationship between President and Admiral. The relationship between Laura and Bill was already murky enough. There were moments that day when she would look at him at odd, unguarded moments and catch him looking at her with tears--and something else quite undeniable--in his eyes. 

But before she dared look too deeply into what she saw in his eyes, before Laura and Bill went any further, she had to know where the President and the Admiral stood. The chasm of silences that had opened between them before she left the fleet had to be securely bridged once and for all. This thin, fragile branch they both stood upon right now was too unsteady to last very long beyond the relief of her return. The slightest perturbation and they would both end up on the raging rapids below.

She made a moue of annoyance at the direction her thoughts were taking and brought her hands up to massage the dull tension behind her brow and temples. 

_Enough with the trite metaphors already_ , the schoolteacher in her told herself firmly. The hatch opened.

"Hi," Bill said as he stepped inside and shut the hatch.

"Hi," she replied sitting up. She made to tuck her legs up underneath her, but a sharp stab of agony in her mid-section reminded her of her recent injuries. She gasped a low moan and straightened them out again.

He was immediately at her side radiating concern. "Are you all right?"

She smiled through the pain. "According to Liam, D'Anna did the _flamenco_ on my diaphragm," she replied, and at his confusion and mounting alarm she explained quickly. "Flamenco is apparently a sort of tap-dance that involves a lot of rhythmic stomping and clapping. Don't worry, my innards have all been put back together rather nicely; I just have to be careful for the next little while. So how is everything in CIC?"

"Good ... good," he replied, a little startled at the abrupt change in the conversation. "Would you like something to drink?"

She smiled as he got up without waiting for her answer and went over to the ambrosia decanter on the small side table to pour himself a glass.

"Just water," she replied. "Liam has me on a rather potent painkiller--alcohol is _seriously_ contra-indicated."

He nodded and handed her the glass of water before sitting back down in the armchair to nurse his own drink. "Do you need--"

"Not for a few hours yet," she said quickly catching his train of thought. 

Now that she thought about it, she probably should take one of the little white pills the Sun Angel doctor had prescribed, but as she was so tired, it would probably put her out like a light. And though she sensed that Bill would be just as happy to wait until things were more settled before getting into this conversation, she was never one for beating around the bush when it came to something this important. She needed to clear the air with him. Here. Now.

As the silence stretched out between them again, she sighed. "You know, rumour has it there are two reasonably mature people in this room," she said.

He chuckled, deep blue eyes sparkling over the rim of his glass as he took a sip. "Is that so?" he rumbled putting his glass down.

"Let's cut to the chase here, Bill," she said abruptly. "We need to be able to work together again--more importantly, we need to communicate and that wasn't happening before I left."

"No, it wasn't," he agreed, "and I'm sorry."

"I'm not looking for an apology." She folded her arms across her chest and gazed at him. "But we do need to discuss why you completely cut me out of the loop."

"I made sure Saul kept you informed," he said defensively.

"For the Gods' sake, Bill," she snapped, a sudden spurt of anger flaring out of her control. "You haven't looked at me, much less talked to me in weeks! Do you know how that made me feel--that you felt I was so despicable you couldn't stand to even _look_ at me!"

"I was angry!" he exploded. He rose; his powerful body so taut with anger that he seemed to vibrate. He turned his back to her and his quiet voice was pained as he spoke again. "How do you think it made me feel to know you were capable of something so monstrously cruel? I couldn't understand it."

"Yet you never gave me a chance to explain," she said evenly. He turned to face her again, jaw clenched and eyes hooded. "Why was that? Time and again I tried to talk to you, and every single time you shut me down." Looking down at her hands, she barked a harsh, mirthless laugh. "Do you really think I didn't know that the reason you repeatedly shut me down was because you thought everything coming from my mouth was nothing but lies?"

"Laura--"

"And you didn't want to hear them," she said hoarsely. 

Laura rose from the couch feeling incredibly exhausted and hollowed out. Though she'd pushed for this confrontation, perhaps it wasn't such a good idea after all. All those things that hovered, indefinable, in that miasma of emotions between them were coming to the fore, and once put into words, they became devastatingly real.

"I think I'd better go," she said walking towards the hatch.

"Why didn't you ever tell me about Polly?"

Bill's words froze her hand as she reached for the handle of the hatch. 

The air was suddenly painfully cold and she couldn't breathe. 

Her lungs burned with the cold. 

Tears formed a hard crystalline lens in front her eyes forcing her to look into the past. 

Polly had died on a bright midsummer morning, but for Laura it would always be the coldest day of her life.

_Cold little hands ..._

_Cold blue lips ..._

_Cold dead eyes--months and months and cold dead eyes ..._

_Cover her eyes ... cover her eyes ... cover her eyes ..._

"Leave my daughter out of this," Laura whispered closing her eyes.

"Were you ever going to tell me about her?" he persisted, familiar husky voice unbearably demanding, filling the void between them with words. She longed for silence now. "You know, I couldn't fathom how a good woman--a woman _I_ trusted could do something so unutterably hideous."

"A good woman," Laura murmured. A painful sob lodged in her throat; she swallowed hard. 

"What is with you _men_!" she blazed and he stared, shocked at her sudden volcanic fury. "Why is it you always have to force some false dichotomy on a woman--set her up on a pedestal so high she can't breathe or trample her into the deepest sewer ... virgin or whore ... mother or monster?" 

She glared at him, fighting the urge to just scream. And for a moment, she conquered it, but only for a moment. Like a Harpy's siren, it came roaring back, and scream she did--at him and at the universe. 

Bill literally jumped; eyes wide with horror at that unholy sound. 

"Well I have news for you, Admiral; I'm no virgin, and yes, I've been a _frakking_ whore when it suited me," she said in a surprisingly calm, almost conversational voice. 

Laura felt a rather sick surge of triumph at the pain that leapt into his fathomless blue eyes and rode the emotion for all it was worth, because if she faltered now, she would always be the one looking for his respect.

"I have been a mother and I have most _certainly_ been a monster--as you can no doubt attest," she continued. "But none of that changes the fact that this had nothing to do with my daughter. It was a decision that had to be made for the good of this civilisation and for the good of that child. And as President of this _frakking_ civilisation, the decision fell to me."

"And you didn't trust--"

 _"Trust!"_ she snarled at him. "You want to talk about frakking trust? I trusted you to know the difference between Laura and the President! I trusted you to know that when the President made her decision it was because she weighed the consequences as rationally and objectively as she could, and chose the one that would result in the least amount of pain and bloodshed, and not because she was some crazy schoolteacher on a _frakking_ power trip. 

"You arrogant son of a bitch! How does knowing about Polly suddenly make what I did any less hideous?" she demanded as she invaded his space. "Whether or not I could empathise with how much it would hurt the Agathons to lose their baby was _irrelevant_. It was an act necessary to insure the safety of this fleet and I'm not going to apologise or justify making that decision. I would do it again in a heartbeat! You think that because you know about Polly, you _know_ me?" 

Silence, like cold space, stretched out between them.

"No, you don't know me at all," she said softly, holding his fulminating gaze, "and _you_ have never trusted me! You've never fully trusted that Laura Roslin was the right person for the job--because she could do the _frakking_ job--only that she was the lesser of a multitude of evils and just happened to be at the right place at the right time, _both_ gods-damned times the Cylons nearly wiped our people from the face of the universe. 

"The very fact that you needed to rationalise my actions through the lens of my daughter tells me that you don't really accord me the same respect you would have accorded Adar to make the same decisions as President of this fleet. Because, though you might have been angry with his actions, you would never have treated him like some recalcitrant _child_ who needed to be brought to heel by ignoring him or refusing to look him in the eye!"

"Are you quite finished?" he said tightly after a few moments. "Contrary to what you believe, I didn't bring up Polly--"

The stinging _crack!_ of flesh against flesh shocked her as much as it did him. 

#


	31. Chapter 31

Cobra-fast reflexes caught her hand in a vise-like grip before it even registered in her brain that she'd hit him. Laura watched in horrified fascination as colour rose to the surface of his craggy cheek. She had put all he power into that punch and her knuckles ached.

Bill pulled her to him; she stumbled forward in a daze.

"I'm sorry," he breathed into her ear. He folded her into the warmth of his arms and she clung to the solid anchor of his body. "Gods, I'm sorry, Laura."

The ice began to melt. Tears flowed down her cheeks. They stood holding each other and after an eternity of tears, he gently steered her back to the couch. She didn't let him go as he sat down, pulling her half on top of him. She rested her head against his broad chest as new tears coursed down her face.

"I do trust you and I do respect you," he continued, his voice rumbling through her, shattering the walls of ice she built around her soul. "But you're right; my handling of this situation was filtered through the lens of a child--but not Hera, and not your daughter, but my son ... both my sons and the fact that I was not a good father to them when they needed me most. I always prided myself on being a good man and a good father, but if there's one thing I've learned out here at the end of the world, Laura, is that I was neither. So every day I wake up and I try to prove to myself that I can be a good man and a good father, and every night I am faced with my failures. Day after day I fail Lee and I'm so afraid of losing him--so afraid that I've already lost him. But Zak--I can't fail Zak anymore, yet in my own frakked-up way, I'm still trying to prove I can be a good father to him."

"Through Kara," she whispered as the sorrow in his voice penetrated the last of her defenses, "and through your pilots, your deckhands ... your crew." 

_And through your outrage for an unbearably cruel act_ , Laura realised now. 

"The President needed William Adama, Admiral of the Fleet, to see the necessity of that action," she said looking up into his brimming blue orbs, "but she got Bill Adama, Father of Lee and Zak, who could only see the agony of it."

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

"I'm sorry too." 

Again silence filled the space between them, but it was a comfortable silence. Laura found herself mesmerised with tracing the rim of one shiny button.

"I guess Wally told you all about Polly," she said at last. 

"He felt that the Admiral of the Fleet needed to get off his high horse and stop making assumptions about the President of the Colonies," Bill replied. "Please don't be angry with him."

"I'm not," she said and found to her surprise that she meant it. "Not any more."

"I'm glad," he replied. "He is a true friend, but I don't think even he understands why you don't talk about her."

"I know." Laura sat up, studying her hands folded on her lap. The ice was gone, and all those feelings that had been dammed up behind it for the last two decades came flooding back, threatening to overwhelm her. "Wally was like a father to her," she said before lapsing into silence for another few moments. 

She rose to leave. "I'd better go--I can't do this right now." 

"Laura?"

"Please Bill," she whispered. "I promise that one day I'll be able to talk about Polly with you, but not now. I can't."

Gently, he turned her to face him. "I do understand," he said, cupping her face with one hand; instinctively she nuzzled her cheek into its warmth. "But before I lose my courage, there is one other thing and I won't bring it up again until you're ready." He gazed into her eyes expectantly and she nodded her permission.

He let her go and walked over to his desk; she felt suddenly bereft. She sat down on the couch again and watched as he removed an envelope and a small box from the top drawer. 

"I borrowed Grey's photograps," he said quietly as he returned and sat down beside her. "I had Gaeta copy them for you," he said and her breath caught at his thoughtfulness. She opened the envelope and saw the album. She gave a small, inarticulate cry as she opened it to the first page and saw the photographs. 

"Thank you," Laura he whispered running her fingers over the outline of Polly's chubby little face and she remembered the utter simple joy of those few days on the Halcyon Shores. Her own small collection of photos was a bit worse for wear after the constant dampness of New Caprica and she'd sealed them in plastic bags, but she was still worried about how to preserve them. "Would you mind asking Gaeta to make copies of my photos as well?" 

"Not at all," Bill replied smiling. He pressed the tiny wooden box into her hand. Studying it now, she saw it was a replica of an ancient sea chest. Opening it, she found a metal chain--the kind used for military dogtags. But instead of dogtags, a small ivory cameo lay nestled in the chain's coils.

Laura couldn't help the tears that spilled down her face again as she lifted it out of the box. The simple carving had captured all the joy and laughter and _life_ in Polly's face beneath the halo of curls.

"I had this bit of Virgon coralline ivory--" he began. She threw her arms about his neck and sobbed anew, overwhelmed by his love. As she stared at the cameo through her tears, for the first time since her childhood, Laura Roslin felt safe and cherished and loved.

"Oh Bill," she croaked when she could meet his gaze again. "How? _When_?"

His smile was almost shy. "Waiting is always the hardest part for me," he said. "So in order not to drive Saul and the CIC crew around the bend I decided to work on my ship, but there really isn't much left to do. Well, I'd bought the ivory to carve a crest for her, but once I saw it again ... this just seemed right. I'm just sorry I didn't have a gold chain or a proper backing for it."

"No!" she cried out involuntarily. "No, it's perfect," she assured him. On closer scrutiny she found that the oval cameo was backed by a hexagonal dogtag; she instinctively knew that it was one of _his_ tags.

Holding out his hand to her, he said, "May I?" She reluctantly relinquished her treasure to him. He deftly slipped the chain over her head and gently moved her hair out from under it. Suspended from the chain on a thin loop of wire, the metal of the dogtag was cool against her skin as it laid upon her chest.

"The chain is adjustable," he told her as she looked down at it, mesmerised. 

Her need to touch it overwhelmed her. "Thank you," she whispered as sensitive fingers traced the miniature curves and planes of her daughter's features again.

"You're welcome," he replied simply.

Giving in to the sudden impulse that overwhelmed her, Laura leaned in and kissed him. She'd only meant to thank him, but his soft lips and the hint of stubble only served to intoxicate her. She moaned into his mouth, deepening the kiss, mouths parted ... tongues tangled in their sensuous duel. All those heady emotions she'd trained herself to ignore came rushing back, kindling the wildfire deep in her belly and spreading it through her veins.

Laura gave a soft cry as sense exerted itself, along with the need to breathe. Their breaths came in ragged counterpoint as they parted, still staring intently at each other. 

Bill smiled and she felt an answering smile curl on her lips. _Well that certainly answers that question_.

"What question would that be, Madam President?" he asked eyes twinkling mischievously as she started--belatedly realising that she'd voiced her thoughts.

Laura felt the blush creep up her neck and over her cheekboness and chuckled softly. "I think I'd better go before we get carried away," she said rising and rebuttoning the white overdress. Though it might look and feel like silk, the Earther synthetic had the advantage that it didn't wrinkle like real silk.

Bill nodded and rose to meet her, offering his elbow. "Your usual quarters are ready," he said as she looped her arm through his. At the threshold, he glanced at the chair; she shook her head.

"It's not far; I can walk," she said. Her guards, Powell and Robey followed at a discrete distance, with Robey pushing the chair. After a few moments of unbearable silence as they strolled down the corridor, she said lightly, "You know, I should have you up on charges for disobeying my orders, Admiral."

He cocked an eyebrow in confusion as he gazed at her. "How so, Madam President?"

Her mouth twitched with the effort to keep a straight face. "Well, I seem to remember some orders about leaving this system after six days?"

A devilish look sparked in his eyes. "I'm not sure if the orders of a President who has gone AWOL could be considered legally binding," he quipped. 

"Civilians don't go AWOL," she pointed out.

"Be that as it may," he countered, "as soon as you left, our dear Mr. Vice President became the one with the legal authority to give orders. I checked it out after the last time you jumped ship on me and went harring off on your own."

"Ahh," she said and lapsed into silence again until they reached the door to her quarters on _Galactica_.

"Please don't do that to me again, Madam President," he husked; it was barely audible to her ears.

"I will try, Admiral," she replied, unwilling to make any promises to him that she might have to break in the future. "I will certainly try."

Bill nodded, accepting her response for what it was worth. 

"Actually," he said, blue eyes snapping again, "I checked with Gaeta, and this planet's day is almost thirty-nine hours long, so when six of its days are translated to our twenty-four hour clock, it works out to be approximately ten standard days. So you see, Madam President, I did obey orders and wait six days for you--just not six standard _Caprican_ days and I don't remember you being terribly specific on that point."

Laura burst into a gale of aching giggles and his rumbling laughter joined hers. However, she knew that part of this was just her desire to prolong his presence as much as possible and that she really should go inside.

"Well, goodnight, Bill," she said. "Tomorrow is going to be a busy day; there are a lot of issues to be resolved."

"And we'll resolve to them together," he replied. "Goodnight, Laura." As she stepped inside, he continued, drawing her attention back to his face and to the undeniable love in those eyes she longed to lose herself in now. "And perhaps tomorrow we can also find a few minutes in our busy day to explore that question further."

Laura felt her heart race in a way it hadn't in years and she understood his reference immediately. "Tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next," she said softly. Clasping her cameo gently against her heart, she allowed her eyes to say what she could not voice. 

"I'm looking forward to exploring all aspects of that question with you, Bill," she said. "Goodnight," she murmured again, gently shutting the hatch. 

And for a few long moments, standing with her back against the door and listening to her own breathing in the comfortable silence, she found a measure of peace.

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I first posted this to the Adama/Roslin archive, Survival Instinct, years ago. I hope you enjoyed it!


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